skip to Main Content

Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry (VMPI)

When a Visa cardholder notices an unusual transaction on their statement and makes an inquiry, you can know about it and respond in real time with the Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry program. You can do this before the issuer ever files an RFI (Request for Inquiry) or chargeback!

You, the merchant, are given a chance to provide all the necessary information related to the transaction in real-time through your CRM or payment gateway. Basically, Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry lets merchants and issuers communicate with each other before any serious action is taken. This is not only beneficial to these two parties, but also the acquirers and processors as well.

Chargebacks On The Rise

Visa received more than 2.6 million individual chargebacks in 2015 alone. The chargebacks were filed by cardholders who saw certain transactions on their statement which they didn’t recognize. This is more than a 13% increase in chargebacks from 2014. Out of all these chargebacks, 20% of them were related to digital and electronic good purchases. These include digital music, movies, mobile apps, and so on.

Since digital good transactions are on the rise each year, the number of credit card disputes is rising too. For many digital goods merchants, it is expensive to deal with chargebacks because they end up being worth more than the products that were sold.

Therefore, a proactive approach must be taken by merchants to stop disputes from being filed when a transaction is not recognized. Digital goods are definitely profitable for merchants because of their volume potential, but that also includes more dispute volume too. That being said, the Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry can be used by any type of merchants such as retail merchant, online store, travel service, and more.

IntegralPay’s Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry Solution

As of this writing, there are only five certified VMPI (Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry) Facilitators as part of the VROL (Visa Resolve Online) program. IntegralPay is an authorized third-party VMPI Facilitator, being a premier partner with one of these certified VMPI Facilitators. By 2020, all issuing banks will be required to connect and use the VROL program. Right now, about 55% of issuing banks are fully integrated into VROL, making up roughly 80% of total Visa transaction volume.

The VROL system looks for inquiries which are made after the initial transaction. For instance, if a customer makes an inquiry regarding one or more transactions, and they’re talking to a customer support person on the phone from the issuing bank, Visa allows a 10-second timeframe where confirmation of the transaction’s existence can be made. The best part is that the issue can be resolved during that call!

VISAnet, Visa’s electronic payments network, handles the alert about the transaction, the confirmation from the merchant, and then finally the resolution. For merchants who receive a high number of chargebacks, the response is almost always a refund or credit to the customer.

This all happens within a 10-second timeframe once an inquiry is made by the cardholder. Disputes have real-time resolutions! This is much better than the traditional system where, in some cases, chargebacks are known by the merchant up to 3 weeks after the customer’s dispute.

Here are the steps of the VMPI procedure:

Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry procedure

Source: Visa Developer Center

1) The cardholder notices an unfamiliar transaction on their statement. They call their issuer about it. The issuer attempts to identify the transaction through the VROL (Visa Resolve Online) system.

2) Visa verifies whether the merchant is associated with Visa Merchant Purchase Inquiry.

3) Visa Resolve Online sends an XML message with certain information elements which can help the merchant identify the transaction by checking their own databases. The merchant receives this message from VROL.

4) The transaction is identified by the merchant. They examine important data elements.

5) VROL receives a reply from the merchant in real-time.

6) The issuer receives enhanced data from Visa, which gets used with the cardholder afterwards. This typically results in credit being issued to their account.

When using IntegralPay’s VMPI program, merchants can prevent the greatest number of chargebacks possible. Through this simple integration, merchants can access VMPI alerts and respond to them in real-time.

Reduce your number of chargebacks and save yourself a lot of money and hassle! Contact us now to get more information and to sign up for the VMPI program.

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply


Back To Top
×Close search