Chris Marchand
In our previous blog, we offered an overview of the newly updated Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) and how it can help acquirers and other players in the payments space manage risk. Going deeper, this blog will help you understand the nuts and bolts of the program: what exactly VAMP monitors, how it works, and what happens when a merchant is flagged.
The criteria used by VAMP
The primary metrics that VAMP examines are chargeback ratios and fraud ratios, calculated monthly for each acquirer’s merchant portfolio.
So, what happens if one of these metrics exceeds its threshold for the acquirer’s portfolio?
Thresholds and enforcement
Thresholds are set by Visa and periodically reviewed. There are three ways they can be identified when a threshold is exceeded:
- Acquirer portfolio level
- Individual merchant level
- Enumeration
The monitoring process
Visa uses the data that’s submitted through regular transaction reporting and monitoring tools. When a threshold is crossed, Visa notifies the acquirer, which must then investigate and respond.
In our recent webinar, Ami Patel from Visa Global Risk shared: “VAMP is about equipping you with early risk insights so you can tackle issues before they escalate, protect your business as it grows, and deliver a seamless experience for every customer.”
Ami adds, "VAMP empowers you to see beyond the alert—enabling secure, seamless growth by transforming early risk insights into future-ready opportunities for our clients, our partners, and every consumer we serve."
How VAMP improves payments
The purpose of the program is not to police acquirers; it’s about building relationships between the players to enable secure growth and continuous improvement to remove risk, fraud, and unnecessary disputes from the payments ecosystem.
In our final VAMP blog, we’ll share some best practices to help acquirers and merchants mitigate risk, prevent fraud, and manage chargebacks. In the meantime, you can explore how VAMP can help your business start proactively managing risk in our recent webinar.