Issuer-offered Click to Pay frequently asked questions

Click to Pay is a standardized digital checkout solution, built on the EMV Secure Remote Commerce specifications, that aims to help improve online purchasing through a faster and more frictionless checkout experience. Click to Pay enables participating users to transact seamlessly, regardless of the payment network, digital channel, or device used – all without having to remember a password. Unlike third-party payment provider experiences or merchant guest checkouts, Click to Pay technology can provide the same level of confidence, trust, ease, and efficiency of a contactless experience to a wholly digital environment.

To date, Visa has provided Click to Pay directly to Visa cardholders, either directly or through participating merchants and issuers (“Visa-offered Click to Pay”). In Visa-offered Click to Pay, a cardholder that elects to participate does so by agreeing to Visa’s terms and conditions and privacy policy. In Visa-offered Click to Pay, Visa manages the cardholder relationship with respect to Click to Pay support. Lifecycle management of the Click to Pay profile is performed by the cardholder through Visa’s destination site.

In contrast, in certain Visa regions and markets, participating issuers are required by the Visa Rules to enroll their cardholders in Click to Pay and offer Click to Pay as a standard feature of their Visa cards (“Issuer-offered Click to Pay”), similar to how contactless is a card-level feature today. In Issuer-offered Click to Pay, participating issuers are required to manage any terms and conditions for Click to Pay participation, including certain terms required by Visa, directly with their cardholders. Issuers must also support all lifecycle management capabilities (for example name or phone number changes) and provide any ongoing cardholder support, including the opportunity to opt-out. Full participation requirements are set forth in the Visa Rules (#0026989), the Visa Click to Pay Supplemental Requirements and the Issuer-Offered Click to Pay as a Card Level Feature-Issuer Guide (“Click to Pay Rules”). Please review these materials for more detailed requirements and guidance. Visa does not provide cardholder-facing support for Issuer-offered Click to Pay.

Once an Issuer begins to offer Issuer-offered Click to Pay, Visa cardholders will be effectively prevented from enrolling in Click to Pay via other channels so Issuers should be prepared to manage these scenarios.

Issuer-offered Click to Pay can be a complementary solution to other issuer offerings and it aims to help issuers retain their relationship with existing customers.

• Cardholders are enrolled using the issuer’s chosen platform (ex, web or app) available. Issuers control the terms and conditions of the cardholder’s participation in Click to Pay and retain responsibility for life cycle management activities for their cardholders.
• Click to Pay can operate as an additional issuer-offered cardholder benefit that can help to further deepen the cardholder’s relationship with the issuer.
• Also, unlike some competitors’ solutions, cardholder funds stay in the issuer’s deposit accounts and are not moved to Click to Pay.

Scaling Click to Pay is essential to equip the ecosystem with a method of digital payment which reduces fraud risk in e-commerce. By activating Click to Pay as a standard feature of Visa cards, friction to enrollment is removed, just like it is with chip and contactless today. The need for merchants to support PAN key entered transactions for e-commerce will be minimized over time.

Participating issuers are subject to the rules and requirements outlined in the Click to Pay Rules. At a high level, there are four key workstreams that Visa recommends issuers focus on when delivering Issuer-offered Click to Pay:

• Complete a legal assessment and update any cardholder terms and conditions to reflect Click to Pay as an issuer-offered, card-level service.
• Complete technical implementation with Visa’s APIs to enroll cards into Click to Pay, as well as for ongoing updates of consumers’ profile information.
• Implement cardholder marketing and communications, as well as make any issuer channel updates to offer ongoing customer support for Click to Pay.
• Add the EMVCo Click to Pay icon to all activated virtual cards and all activated physical cards upon issuance (or reissuance, as applicable).

For full requirements, please reference the Visa Click to Pay Rules.

All cards that are eligible for tokenization should be enrolled in Click to Pay. Issuers are not required to activate Click to Pay for non-reloadable prepaid cards, single use or commercial cards where they cannot provide data requirements for all necessary data fields. Where a commercial card has the necessary data requirements, it is highly recommended that these cards also have Click to Pay as a standard card-level feature.

A list of the current participating markets is available in Visa Rule ID #0026989. Other regions and markets are being considered. Any new regions or markets will be communicated through Visa Business News article(s) and further updates to the Visa Rules.

Where Issuer-offered Click to Pay is in effect, Visa will not manage cardholder participation in Click to Pay. This relationship will be directly between the participating issuers and their cardholders. Issuers should conduct their own legal analysis to determine the full extent of any required updates or additions to their cardholder terms and conditions to support Click to Pay as a card-level service. In addition, as part of the Visa Click to Pay Rules, Visa requires certain minimum terms be included in the issuers’ cardholder terms. For full requirements, see the Click to Pay Rules.

The Implementation Guide and API Specifications for Issuer-offered Click to Pay are available in the Visa Developer Center-Getting started as an issuer.

Standard implementation fees may apply. Please contact your Visa representative for specific fee details.

As part of Issuer-offered Click to Pay, a participating issuer is responsible for collecting and verifying cardholder data used for creation of a cardholder’s Click to Pay profile. For example, required cardholder data elements may include PAN, cardholder name, email address, mobile phone number. A full list of all required cardholder data elements is provided in the Issuer-Offered Click to Pay as a Card Level Feature-Issuer Guide document. Issuers should follow applicable law and regulation in connection with their data privacy practices.

In certain regions, Visa may offer issuers a marketing toolkit with recommended messaging that can be shared with cardholders to inform them about Click to Pay. Note that while Visa may provide general guidance about Click to Pay, it is the issuer’s responsibility to define their own communication plan, ensure that cardholders are made aware and are effectively educated about Click to Pay, including as a card-level feature and the option to opt-out.

Visa does not expect an issuer to throw away existing card stock. If the assumption is that the existing card stock may last beyond the deadline for requirements to be met, a waiver to placing the EMVCo Click to Pay icon on cards would be considered to allow the issuer to use the existing card stock first. In this instance an issuer should have completed the card art design and approval process with the EmvCo Click to Pay icon and agree to producing the updated card art once the existing stock is depleted.

Through Click to Pay, cardholders can easily checkout online using their preferred device while retaining the safety and card benefits provided by their issuer. Additional issuer-offered benefits may include:

• Because cards are enrolled by the issuer, there are no barriers to cardholders being able to immediately use and enjoy Click to Pay.
• Cardholders will use existing issuer channels (such as app or website) that they know and trust to access and manage their Click to Pay profiles and lifecycle activities.

If a card is enrolled in Click to Pay through Issuer-offered Click to Pay, cardholders may be prevented from using other enrollment channels and redirected to their issuer’s platforms. Under the terms of Visa-offered Click to Pay, cardholders participating in Issuer-offered Click to Pay are not eligible for Visa-offered Click to Pay.

Currently, consumers can enroll into Visa-offered Click to Pay via their participating issuing bank, via merchant checkout where available, or via Visa's destination site. As Issuer-offered Click to Pay continues to grow, other enrollment options will become less available and eventually removed.

Cards that were enrolled through their issuer using Visa Card Enrollment Hub (VCEH), Visa’s destination site or through a merchant currently fall under the terms of Visa-offered Click to Pay. After the issuer enables Click to Pay, cards that were enrolled through other ways need to be migrated and re-enrolled through the issuer's Click to Pay and follow the issuer's cardholder terms. Once re-enrolled under Issuer-offered Click to Pay, the impacted cards will be removed and deleted from the Visa-offered Click to Pay program.

When the issuer receives information that a card enrolled in Issuer-offered Click to Pay has been lost/stolen, the issuer should send a token deletion request to Click to Pay as the token requestor and the card will be automatically removed from the related Click to Pay profile.

The email address used at enrollment determines the Click to Pay profile and which cards are shown. Therefore, if a cardholder is enrolled with one email address but signs in with another one, they may see different cards.

Cardholders must be provided with a choice to opt out of Issuer-offered Click to Pay. Issuers should determine how to best provide this option, including through any existing cardholder support channels, for example using Issuer banking app, online banking or in person. An issuer can then delete the impacted card(s) and related tokens from Click to Pay using APIs that are provided by Visa through VDP.