New Restrictions for VISA as of 04/15/2023

VISA recently notified its business network that new rules for debt repayment are coming on April 15, 2023. These changes will impact a wide variety of collection agencies and debt buyers, including those seeking payment of pre-charge-off accounts that are 120 days past due. 

(Full article link: https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/2023/03/14/life-takes-visa-but-debt-collectors-dont-new-debt-repayment-rules-are-coming-for-collection-agencies-on-april-15-2023/ )

List of Changes (Summarized):

• Collection agencies must use new Merchant Category Code MCC 7322. VISA introduced this new Merchant Category Code (MCC) for collection agencies in October 2022.  On April 15, 2023, use of the code will be mandatory for “collection agencies” which are broadly defined as merchants that collect payments of overdue receivables on behalf of another or collect overdue receivables that they purchased from a third party.
• Prohibit using a credit card or charge card to repay the debt
• Prohibit the use of debit cards to repay payday loans.
• For the full article from VISA on this change, please follow the link below. Section 5.8.12:

https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf 

Concepts2Code is prepared to help accommodate this change. 

We have a new setting called "Allow VISA Credit Cards". Currently this setting is set to "true", and all valid cards will be accepted. To accommodate this change, the setting would be set to "false", and Credit Cards starting with 4 will be denied. The consumer will also get a "Visa Denied" message. The message will be "VISA credit cards cannot be accepted for payment of this account. You may use another credit card or DEBIT card."

If your company would like to make this update to accommodate the new VISA change, please send us an email at [email protected] with the Subject Line of "VISA Update". Let us know if you would like to update the "Allow VISA Credit Cards" setting to false.