Background

Visa is reminding clients of the global requirements for the correction of duplicate or erroneous clearing transactions. Duplicate clearing transactions occur when the same cardholder transaction has been processed more than once. Duplicates can originate with merchants, acquirers, or processors due to software issues, duplicate batches, or duplicate file transmissions. 

These transactions can negatively impact cardholders, especially when they involve debit transactions, which can cause needless overdrafts and late fees. Duplicates can also impact merchants when cardholders are charged more than once for a transaction. Issues may have to report a duplicate transaction incident to their regulator depending on local market requirements, which increases issuer cost and resource allocation. 

Description

Ensuring Compliance 

Acquirers must ensure their correct duplicate or erroneous transactions by processing clearing reversals within one business day. Please ensure you maintain all key data elements from the duplicate to enable issuers to properly match the reversal to the duplicate.

Non-compliance assessment may be awarded to acquirers that do not adhere to these requirements. 

Additional Resources

Review the Visa Rules Library for more information (not available for agents) at your leisure.

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