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VISA's New Requirement Cuts Deeper Than We Think

  • 18 hours ago
  • 1 min read

Visa recently introduced a requirement for domestic e-commerce transactions in Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, mandating that merchants include specific identification data in both authorization and clearing messages. For Belgium and Luxembourg, this means the Tax Identification Number, and for France, the SIRET number.  


At first glance, this appears to be a simple technical adjustment but this assumption is exactly where most businesses go wrong. If this data is missing or incorrect, transactions may be declined, flagged, delayed, or penalised and the impact is immediate and measurable.


This seemingly small adjustment can directly affect revenue, customer experience, and operational stability.

What makes this even more critical is that this requirement does not sit outside of the payment process, but directly inside it, meaning it actively influences how transactions are evaluated in real time.


From a processing perspective, this introduces a dependency across the entire payment chain and if any part of this chain fails, transactions may not reach the issuer correctly.


There is also a direct impact on authorization rates, meaning compliance directly influences revenue performance.


A missing or incorrect value can create a spiralling effect, and the impact shows immediately in approval rates, customer experience, and revenue performance.


 
 
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