Visa plans to restrict standing instruction digital wallet Merchant Initiated Transactions

Visa plans to restrict standing instruction Merchant Initiated Transactions (MITs) made through digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.

From February 28, 2024, it will only be possible to process standing instruction MITs with network tokens for Credential On File (COF) transactions.

What’s changing?

To minimize the impacts to existing transactions, Visa will:

• Decline standing instruction MITs on digital wallets agreed after February 28, 2024.
• Continue to process MITs on digital wallets that were agreed prior to February 28, 2024.

What does this mean for you?

Standing instruction MITs are transactions that were pre-agreed by your cardholders for goods and services. They are performed as follow-ups to Cardholder Initiated Transactions (CITs).

Any standing instruction MITs that are agreed on a digital wallet (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay etc) after February 28, 2024, will need to use COF network tokens instead of submitting the MIT with a full PAN.

If you are interested in the COF network tokens solution from Checkout.com, please speak to your usual support team who will be happy to help. If you receive your network tokens via Visa or a third-party, you will need to make sure they are Credential On File network tokens and submit new MITs accordingly from February 28, 2024.

Visa will continue to honour pre-established MITs between merchants and cardholders on device tokens that were provisioned prior to February 28, 2024.

What are network tokens?

Network tokens are unique digital identifiers used to supply a tokenized value instead of the primary account number (PAN) in all parts of the payment chain. These tokens replace sensitive card data, like the account number and expiry date on the front of a card used for payment, without exposing the actual account details.

You can read more about network tokens here

Our docs on how to submit network tokens are available here