Visa B2B Payment Controls

Authorization-based payment controls solutions for B2B market segments.

available for use by

Issuer Banks

Issuer Banks for Small Business

Regional Availability

View Details
  • N. America
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • CEMEA
  • LAC

Fees & terms

Free to use in Sandbox. Contact for Production fees. Product terms located at end of the page.

VPC
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Protect your payments with a variety of dynamic controls

Visa B2B Payment Controls offers authorization-based payment controls solutions for B2B market segments such as Government, Corporate, Commercial and Small Business. This service allows more security and safety for commercial payments and provides issuers and their third-party providers with spend protection mechanisms.

You can also define when, where, how, and for how much accounts can be used along with capabilities to see their usage and end client notifications.

The Visa B2B Payment Controls APIs use the well-known Visa Payment Controls (VPC) rule setting engine that already protects commercial payments via Visa Payables Automation and Visa Spend Clarity for Enterprise and protects small business accounts through Visa Spend Clarity for Business.

These APIs are an addition to the selection of Visa Business Solutions APIs designed to meet your commercial needs. 

Key Features

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Set dynamic controls on physical or virtual cards in near-real time on Visa network.

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Protect payments, reducing fraud and misuse.

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Configure contacts to receive timely email or SMS notifications.

Why Use It?

The Visa B2B Payment Controls APIs promote usability and allow you to secure your payments. Incorporate these APIs within your user experience or workflow to benefit from the added protection of dynamic payment controls. 

Provides a Custom User Experience

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Fintechs (on behalf of issuers) and issuers have the flexibility to create their own user experience and incorporate Visa Payment Controls functionality directly within their platform – setting controls on both plastic and virtual cards in near real-time.

  • Controls include spend rules, merchant groups, location, channel, and time rules
  • Setup notification/distribution for decline emails and SMS
  • Retrieve card and notification details – including consumed amount

Supports Multiple Use Cases

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You have direct access to set and manage controls on new or existing accounts. Some of the possible use cases include these potential scenarios:

  • A company needs to set and manage controls on a range of cards for employee usage.
  • Set dynamic controls on individual accounts or many different accounts through bulk capability. You want to set spending limits for employee use on physical plastic cards only after an internal approval process.
  • You already have card accounts for commercial or small business use cases – plastic or virtual cards service. Once you register the card accounts to Visa B2B Payment Controls, you can start setting rules using the Controls Management Service.
  • Set controls on an account used by a personal shopper/service powered by commercial card use cases.
  • Block employee cards from usage until the employee has a business need to spend.

Drives Card Usage

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This service can encourage card issuance by organization, improving confidence and peace of mind to ensure spending adheres to company policies by controlling how, when, and where those cards are used. It also protects commercial, larger payments from potential fraud or misuse.

There are flexible rules to manage things like:

  • Employee purchasing
  • On-demand purchases
  • Supplier Payments
  • Business travel
  • Centralized Accounts Payables
  • Fleet purchases

Encourages Efficiency

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You can use this service as a standalone capability for your card portfolio, or you can combine it with other Visa API services such as Visa Business Solutions APIs. It also supports bulk account functionality, letting you set controls on many different accounts at one time.

How Does It Work?

Visa B2B Payment Controls can be used to set authorization-based payment controls on your plastic or virtual accounts. The first illustration shows how transactions are processed when controls have been applied. 

Process Flow for a Transaction with Visa B2B Payment Controls

This illustration shows a process flow for a transaction using Visa B2B Payment Controls.

  1. Business Owner/Admin accesses their UI portal connected to the Visa B2B Payment Controls APIs to configure accounts rules.
  2. The UI portal triggers API calls using the Visa B2B Payment Controls to set rules on the account.  The controls are then applied at VisaNet. 
  3. Cardholder presents the card at a merchant location or via computer to make a purchase.
  4. Merchant processes the transaction, and the authorization process moves through the card rails and the transaction is routed to VisaNet. 
  5. VisaNet checks for any predefined rules set in Visa B2B Payment Controls for the account.
  6. One of two things happen:
    • If payment aligned with Visa B2B Payment Controls rules, the payment is passed to the issuer for an authorization decision.
    • If the block criteria are met, the transaction is declined due to Visa B2B Payment Controls rules.
  7. The issuer authorizes or declines the transaction.
  8. The issuer returns it to VisaNet.
Process flow for a transaction with Visa B2B Payment Controls

APIs Included

Company Management Service

The Company Management Service allows you to set up a company as well as manage company changes within Visa B2B Payment Controls for which you will be managing rules on behalf of that company. You can create a new company, make updates to the existing company details, delete a company, as well as retrieve the details of an existing company and the associated accounts.

Account Administration Service

Use the Account Administration Service to register your full card portfolio in initial setup, or to add additional cards prior to use. You can also use this service to add existing cards to payment controls, update card parameters such as expiration date or card status, delete cards from the system, and retrieve card details from the system. This service supports calls at an individual card level as well as bulk functionality for registration.

Controls Management Service

The Controls Management Service lets you set dynamic controls on the Visa network in near-real time at the individual card level or you can leverage bulk functionality to set controls on many cards at once. Using this service, you can also delete controls you no longer need, and get control details to see your existing rule configuration at the card level.

Contact Management Service

The Contact Management Service allows you to configure contacts to cards to receive decline notifications via email and SMS messages. You can create an individual contact for a card or assign multiple contacts to a single card to receive notifications. You can also delete existing contacts from an account. Finally, you can get all contact details for a specific card that has been set up to receive notifications.

Reporting Management Service

The Reporting Management Service allows you to retrieve both transactional decline details and notification details for a card. This service supports cardholder search and dashboard functionality within your user experience.

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B2B Virtual Account Payments Method

The B2B Virtual Account Payment Method involves a suite of APIs which allows you to use virtual accounts to automate the process of paying your suppliers. Additionally, the B2B Virtual Account Payment Method can enable you to develop flexible solutions across industries and segments.

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Request a Virtual Account and Set Controls

Third party FinTechs can request virtual accounts on behalf of a commercial issuer and specify account controls for digital presentment.

Data Center

Visa Business Data Solutions

The Visa Business Data Solutions API provides a faster and more efficient way for participating issuers and their commercial clients to pull their commercial card transaction data and make strategic decisions based on data-driven insights. Current APIs provide access to transaction and enhanced data along with supplier data via different data groupings.

Regional Availability

The following table lists the regional availability for Visa B2B Payment Controls. To view availability of all products, refer to the Regional Availability.

North America Asia-Pacific Europe CEMEA LAC Notes
    KEY
  • Available in entire region
  • Not available
  • See notes for available countries

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