Card-On-File Data Inquiry

Visa capabilities that allow a consumer to view and manage their Visa card through Issuer’s online/mobile.

available for use by

Regional Availability

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

Terms & Fees

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

Merchant Details in Your Hand

Consumers are storing their card credentials at more online retailers and service providers, but often lack visibility into which merchants have their card information and where the card information needs to be updated, when the card is reissued.

Transactions are either initiated by a consumer, or by a merchant based on the instructions given to them by the consumer. Based on those instructions, it is possible for a merchant to initiate a transaction without consumer action.

Key Features

Visa returns Card On File Merchant details.

Message card replacement status to cardholders.

Protect top-of-wallet status by proactively managing card-on-file messaging in the case of re-issuance.

Why Use It?

Card-on-File Data Inquiry is designed to provide information about the merchants with whom cardholders may have stored their cards on file, and when the merchants have received updated card details, in the event of card reissuance.

API Features

• API based on VDP standards to provide the merchant details (without the duplication of merchant names) from the transaction data, VAU requests and VTS COF Tokens for a given issuer
• Visa PAN (or mapped Tokens) used to submit COF (authorization or full financial or account verification) transactions in the last thirteen months
• Apply the criteria for both PAN & Token to identify where the PAN (or mapped Token) credentials may be stored on file (identifying merchant names and corresponding Merchant Category Codes)
• Visa Account Updater (VAU) status provides an “update” indicator and update date in the API response to show whether the issuer has updated the PAN account; however, the status does not indicate whether the merchant has updated its own records with the new data. Visa is working to provide more granularity to this indicator, as it may not indicate that the credential is updated for transaction processing
• The Token PAN Replacement Status indicates whether an account update has been applied to the token's underlying credential, allowing it to process as normal

How Does It Work?

Card-on-File Data Inquiry provides issuers with information about the card-on-file merchants (to issuers) where cardholders have transacted or with whom cardholders have stored their PAN/Token credentials for merchants to initiate payments.

The most transparent way to flag “Card on File” transactions is by identifying transactions initiated with “Point of Sale Entry Mode 10 (PEM 10).” Visa introduced this transaction type in October 2016 and is working with industry participants to adopt the new PEM. However, until PEM 10 gains full industry adoption, Visa will use a combination of techniques to identify merchants for a given cardholder where that cardholder’s credential is likely stored on file by that merchant. For a given cardholder, Visa will identify merchants that:

• Tokenized cardholder’s PAN (Through COF Token provisioning)
• Initiated transactions using PEM 10 for that card
• Initiated Recurring and Bill pay transactions
• Performed VAU update for that card

Using the Card-on-File Data Inquiry, Issuers can enhance their mobile or online banking applications to show the list of merchants and other COF data attributes to provide visibility into where a consumer’s card credentials are stored. In the event of card reissuance, the issuer can also display information around which merchants have received updated card details.

APIs Included

Card-On-File Data API

This helps you easily to identify all the merchants who are having the consumer card credentials on their file for submitting recurring or bill pay type of transactions

• API Docs
• API Reference