Card scheme website requirements
Visa and Mastercard requirements for ecommerce websites
If you sell goods and services online, your customers will mostly interact with you via your merchant website. So your website should provide a great customer experience.
To accept card payments, your website should meet the requirements of the card schemes (Visa and MasterCard).
On your website you must provide the following information:
- Clear and accurate identification and description of your goods and services
- Final price and transaction currency
- Payment terms and the timing
- Delivery information, including timelines and the delivery methods
- How to cancel an order and/or request a refund
- Contact details
- Business registration details including legal name, registration number and registered address.
You must inform cardholders of the facts of your business and obtain their express, informed consent before they enter into an agreement and process a transaction.
Implementing these requirements helps create a clear understanding between merchant and cardholder, which reduces customer disputes, promotes goodwill, lowers operating costs for all parties, and reinforces the integrity of the card brands.
Website compliance review
Your acquirer will review your website and may request that you make certain changes to meet card scheme requirements as a condition of the final approval of your merchant account.
The requirements cover several key areas of your website and service:
- Website fundamentals
- Terms & Conditions
- Privacy Policy
- Contact Us page
- Checkout page
Depending on your business model (for example, if you operate a licensed business like a gambling site or a pharmacy), you may need to supply additional information, or the acquirer may need to perform further validations.
Website fundamentals
For e-commerce merchants, your website must be securely hosted at your own domain and display a valid security certificate. It may not redirect to another domain or be a subdomain of another website.
The following information must be visible on all pages of your website. Normally, you would display these details in your website header or footer.
- Registered company name and (if different) your trading name.
- Company registration number
- Location statement confirming your merchant outlet country, i.e., "Registered in England & Wales"
- Registered business address and (if different) your operating location address.
- Customer service contact, including email address and/or phone number
- VAT / Tax registration number (if applicable)
- A descriptor statement confirming how your charges will appear on the cardholder billing statement, i.e. "Our charge will appear on your billing statement as "__”.
- A link to your Terms & Conditions
- A link to your Privacy Policy
- A link to your Contact Us page
- The Visa/MasterCard logos
Terms and Conditions
Your Terms and Conditions should include and concisely describe:
- Complete company information (as set forth above)
- A general description of your goods or services
- How you will charge for goods or services
- Delivery policy, describing how goods are delivered, costs, and expected timelines
- Cancellation policy and the process for cancelling an order
- Refund policy and the process for requesting a refund
- Legal jurisdiction and venue for dispute resolution
- Any other legal undertakings
Privacy Policy
Your Privacy Policy should define:
- What Personal Data and sensitive information is collected
- How you use Personal Data
- How you secure Personal Data
- How consent is obtained for personal data use and marketing purposes
- Who to contact to make a personal data information request under GDPR
Contact Us page
Your Contact Us page should include:
- Your registered company name and trading name, if applicable
- A correspondence address
- A contact email address or phone number
Checkout requirements
Your checkout page must also meet the card scheme requirements. Before the cardholder completes a transaction, you must display this transaction information on the checkout screen:
- The merchant's legal or trading name
- The merchant outlet location country
- A description of the goods and services
- The total purchase price
- The transaction currency
- Links to the cancellation policy and refund policy
- A mandatory ‘Click to accept’ checkbox to agree to Terms & Conditions (unchecked by default)
Website compliance requirements may sound onerous, but merchants and cardholders benefit from a seamless, transparent, and predictable customer experience when they are implemented correctly.
Help!?
If this sounds a bit much, don’t worry – CardCorp can help.
Our team will conduct a full review of your website for card scheme compliance and let you know if you need to work on anything before submitting your application.
If you use BillPro (our hosted billing platform), you don't need to worry about these details – BillPro automatically creates compliant checkouts and automatically sends all notifications, including mandate agreements.
What's Next?
Sign up on our website for a free assessment of document requirements and risk factors that may be in scope for your business.
Updated 21 days ago