Merchant Initiated Transactions (MITs)

Card processing mandates from Visa and Mastercard stipulate various conditions that Merchant Initiated Transactions (MITs) may be performed, as well as which MIT Reason Codes can be used in each of those conditions. Mastercard and Visa are now closely monitoring transactions to ensure compliance and are moving to strictly enforce these conditions. Failure to comply would result in non-compliance; leading to fines being issued.

What is a MIT?

Merchant Initiated Transactions (MITs) are those payments triggered by a user using an existing, stored, gateway token.

For example; an Account Check was taken to Guarantee the booking which then resulted in a No-show. A Rezlynx user would then take a (child) payment using the (parent) Account Check transaction.

During this process users are required to supply a MIT Reason code. An example of this can be seen in the following image...

What's changing?

Users will only be able to perform a Merchant Initiated Transaction (MIT) if the parent transaction meets with the conditions set out within the MIT Framework Mandates.

The following graph illustrates those compliant conditions and which MIT Reason Codes can be used.

When will this be enforced?

These are not new rules, but up until now the card issuers had not been closely monitoring or enforcing this aspect of the mandate. In order to assist users in complying with the rules, the Rezlynx User Interface will be updated over coming weeks.

How will this impact merchants?

There will be 2 significant changes from a user perspective.

1. Merchant Initiated Transactions (MITs) will no longer be permitted on transactions that don't meet the specific conditions. From a user perspective this means that the Take Payment facility on some transactions will no longer be available. For example, a Declined Account Check.
2. When an MIT is permitted and the Take Payment option is available, the list of MIT Reason Codes will be filtered to only those permissible under the MIT Framework Mandate.

Ensuring merchants comply with the mandates means that potential for chargebacks is reduced and merchants avoid the possibility of fines being applied by the card issuing schemes.

Please take time to consider how the enforcement of these rules may impact your current operations and make any necessary adjustments to your internal processes that may be required.