Overview

The Visa ID & Credential API (VICA) is an API platform and batch solution that lets issuers and third parties manage consumer identities and payment credentials, and enroll them into multiple Visa products through a single, unified integration.

Instead of integrating consumer and payment credential management separately for each Visa product, clients integrate with a common Visa ID & Credential API set or batch solution and specify which product(s) each operation applies to. When new products are enabled through VICA, consumer and credential management capabilities are typically supported through the existing VICA operations and batch solution using additional product codes and request attributes rather than new VICA endpoints. However, some Visa products may still require product specific integrations, configurations, or APIs outside of VICA to support product specific functionality.

VICA sits in front of multiple Visa services, exposing one common set of enrollment and data-management endpoints. Issuers (or their VisaNet Processor, Visa Scheme Processor, or Third-Party Agent) call VICA; VICA routes each operation to the products you specify.

Figure: issuers connect to VICA via the API or Batch Solution; VICA routes each operation to the Visa product(s) you target — Click to Pay, Address Verification Service, Alias Directory Service, or Account Name Inquiry.

For how the shared operations, data model, and routing work, see Core Concepts.

The following principles govern how products are enabled through VICA:

• Backwards compatible. Changes are delivered through new request attributes and additional product codes, never by breaking existing integrations.
• No implicit cross-enrollment. Data enrolled in one product (e.g., Click to Pay) is not automatically enrolled into another (e.g., AVS). Additionally, you can copy data that is already in Click to Pay to other products, but not from other products into Click to Pay.
• Explicit product targeting. Clients explicitly instruct VICA which product each operation (enroll, update, delete, retrieve) applies to. Client-controlled eligibility. Clients decide which consumers and payment credentials are eligible for which Visa products.

VICA lets you enroll and manage consumer and payment data across these Visa products through one integration:

Further Visa services will be added over time using the same integration model.

• Getting Started – understand the path to production
• First Steps – make your first call
• Core Concepts – learn how VICA works: data model, identity, async processing, requests patterns
• Implementation Guides – step-by-step recipes for each operation