Fraud prevention platform Ravelin urges merchants to take immediate action on Visa’s updated VAMP (Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program). It warns that failure to minimize fraud will mean incurring significant, recurring fees, and even losing the ability to accept Visa payments.
VAMP enforcement begins on Oct. 1. Starting then, merchants with high fraud rates will pay new penalties. VAMP consolidates Visa’s dispute and fraud monitoring, for both merchants and acquirers, into a single global framework. It is intended to encourage merchants to manage fraud more closely.
Under VAMP, merchants who have more than 2.2% of disputed transactions, whether fraudulent or not, will find themselves subject to a fee of $8 per dispute. From April 2026, this threshold will be reduced to 1.5%. For high-volume businesses, these charges could swiftly mount up.
VAMP also introduces new controls on enumeration attacks, in which criminals test stolen card details by attempting small purchases. Merchants will be subject to VAMP if more than 20% of their transactions are enumeration attacks, irrespective of their value.
“With VAMP, Visa compels merchants to get on the front foot with fraud,” Ravelin CEO Martin Sweeney said. “If they don’t, they may find themselves hit with additional fees, or even blocked from accepting Visa payments altogether.”
Ravelin recommends merchants take the following steps:
- Review their current dispute and fraud rates using Visa’s new calculations. Understand how close the business is to the thresholds.
- Invest in real-time fraud prevention tools to identify and block fraudulent activity before payments go through
- Check their acquirer’s policies around chargebacks, as well as any changes planned. Consider switching if they are unclear or inflexible.
- Ask acquirers to send data for all chargebacks – in case there is fraud you haven’t seen before.
- Consider deploying 3D Secure at the merchant level. An in-house 3D Secure solution optimizes authentication data, reduces fraud, and increases opportunities for frictionless, uninterrupted buying journeys.
“No merchant wants to find themselves unable to accept Visa payments, which make up almost 40% of global card transactions,” Sweeney said. “Maintaining low fraud rates is not just a cost-control or compliance issue; it’s a business-critical priority. Merchants can’t afford to sit back. (It’s) here, and the impact will be felt across customer experience, operations and revenue.”
