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Card scheme's monitoring program

Card schemes (like Visa and Mastercard) monitor your monthly dispute activity in relation to your sales volume. If the number of chargebacks you receive exceeds the levels deemed acceptable by the scheme, you may be placed on their monitoring program.

Once you’re on a program, the scheme can charge you fines and additional fees, until you reduce the dispute activity back down to acceptable levels. We will notify you if you are at risk of or have been enrolled in such a program and collaborate with you in reducing your disputes.

In this document, we list Visa and Mastercard's monitoring programs to enhance your understanding of these programs.

Visa monitoring program

Starting April 2025, Visa has launched the enhanced Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP), consolidating the Visa Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP) and the Visa Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP) into a unified framework. VAMP introduces dispute and transaction-based metrics called the VAMP ratio and VAMP enumeration ratio, and evaluates the performance of merchants and acquirers based on these ratios:

  • Metric: The number of fraudulent transactions (fraud count) and the number of disputes on card-not-present VisaNet transactions (domestic and cross-border).
  •  The fraud count refers to the number of fraud notifications from Visa.
  • Non-fraud disputes are chargebacks with reason codes under 11, 12, and 13 categories.
  • Chargeback reason code 10.5 is excluded.
  • Ratio calculation: Count of [Fraud (TC40) + Disputes (TC15)] divided by Count of settled transactions (TC05)

Please refer to the Chargeback reason codes - Visa.

VAMP threshold

Visa will also consider the fraud and dispute count thresholds of the acquirer. Therefore, Antom is responsible for ensuring that it does not exceed the established VAMP thresholds.

Through the VAMP program, Visa will assess the ratios of Antom and merchant accounts based on the following thresholds. Once these thresholds are exceeded, it may result in penalties.

In cases where Antom is not within the Above Standard or Excessive performance thresholds, the Excessive Merchant performance thresholds are applied. When you are included in the VAMP program, Antom will provide you with detailed information regarding remedial measures.

Threshold level

VAMP ratio

Monthly count of fraud and disputes

Above Standard

≥ 0.5%

  • Asia Pacific, Canada, European Union, United States, Latin America and the Caribbean: A minimum monthly volume of ≥ 1,500 fraudulent transactions and disputes.
  • Central Europe, Middle East and Africa: A minimom monthly volume of ≥ 150 fraudulent transactions and disputes, with amount ≥ USD 75,000.

Excessive

≥ 0.7%

Note：

In addition to the above threshold ratio specifications, the following standards for merchant thresholds are also included:

  • Both fraudulent disputes and non-fraud disputes resolved through the Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network (CDRN) are not included in the threshold calculation, contingent on the timing on the data extract.
  • Excludes TC40 fraud cases that qualify for Compelling Evidence 3.0, contingent on the timing of the data extract.
  • Starting from the date when a merchant first triggers the VAMP regulatory process, the merchant will be granted a 90-day compliance adjustment period during which no penalties will be imposed.
    If the merchant fails to meet compliance requirements after this period, penalty procedures will be initiated.
    This 90-day grace period is applicable only if the merchant has no VAMP exceedance records in the 12 months prior to the first trigger.

 Mastercard monitoring program

Mastercard uses the Acquirer Chargeback Monitoring Program (ACMP) to monitor merchants that receive an excessive number of chargebacks monthly. Mastercard's ACMP consists of two programs, the Excessive Chargeback Program (ECP) and the Excessive Fraud Merchant (EFM) program.

The following table shows the thresholds of both monitoring programs:

Monitoring program

Monitoring metrics

Threshold

ECP

(Excessive Chargeback Program)

Both:

1. CTR = CB count received on the reported month/payment count of the preceding month

2. CB count

Chargeback-Monitored Merchant (CMM), if both:
1. CTR: 1%
2. CB count: 100

Excessive Chargeback Merchant (ECM), if both:

1. CTR: 1.5%-2.99%

2. CB count: 100-299

High Excessive Chargeback Merchant (HECM), if both:

1. CTR: 3%

2. CB count: 300

EFM

(Excessive Fraud Merchant Compliance Program)

 N/A

If all the following conditions are met:

  • Minimum of 1,000 e-commerce transactions in clearing
  • At least 50,000 USD (or local currency equivalent) in fraud chargebacks in a month
  • 0.50% fraud chargeback BPS in a month (Fraud CB count received on reported month/payment count of the preceding month)
  • Penetration of 3DS transactions is less than 10% of the merchant’s CNP volume (non-regulated)/50% (regulated)