A Look Ahead to 2024
Goodbye, 2023, and hello, 2024. Happy New Year! Last year, we got Mastercard publishing an official rule on deepfakes, Visa lowered the limit on surcharging to 3%, and “Rizz” was named the word of the year by the Oxford University Press – it’s short for “charisma.”
With the mad holiday rush behind us and we start a new year, we’re entering the “new year, new me” phase. It’s time to hang up that dry cleaning and get back on that Peloton Bike, return all those phone calls and e-mails that came in between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and really buckle down this year. This is the year!
AI seems to have taken off last year, and it’s growing faster than the man can keep it down. Mastercard published an update in August to its Business Risk Assessment and Mitigation (BRAM) Program that addressed adult content and deep fakes. The takeaway you need to know is: if consent cannot be established, the content is considered to be in violation of the adult content and services requirements and cannot be published. Basically, you can’t create images with someone’s likeness without their consent.
As we embark on 2024, there are many things we’re looking forward to: the Summer Olympics in Paris, a presidential election in the United States, Aerosmith’s Farewell Tour will conclude, a total solar eclipse in April, and in November, Artemis II will send four astronauts beyond low earth orbit to perform a flyby of the Moon and return to Earth, making it the first mission of its kind since Apollo 17 in 1972. These are just a few examples of what waits in store for us. Personally, I can’t wait to see National Treasure 3 on Apple Vision Pro. It goes without saying that I’m very much looking forward to seeing everyone at XBIZ LA. It’s a great place to meet up with old friends, network, do business, and make new friends.
In the year ahead, we will continue to improve how businesses accept credit card payments. Not only do we seek to improve how businesses accept credit cards, but we want to help those businesses protect those transactions. Some things have been lost to 2023, but unfortunately, chargebacks isn’t one of them. There are lots of things that can be done to help prevent chargebacks. Good billing practices, 3-D Secure, AVS, CVV, a liberal refund policy, are a few things a business can do to protect themselves, but fraudsters will defraud businesses at every opportunity. Frustratingly, issuing banks tend to side with their cardholders over a business – especially adult businesses.
Fortunately, there are tools available to alleviate some of these burdensome concerns. Tools like RDR and CDRN by Visa, and Ethoca Alerts by Mastercard are fantastic resources to intercept and prevent chargebacks from happening. These tools have been invaluable, especially in adult and dating, in dramatically reducing chargeback ratios. CDRN and Ethoca Alerts require human intervention, but they give a business 24-72 hours to take action. If you sell a tangible product, this may afford you the time needed to prevent or divert a shipment, and if you sell a membership, it gives you the opportunity to reach out to your member and ask if everything is okay. As a business, it gives you the choice to issue a refund, address a consumer complaint, or investigate further, as opposed to waking up to yet another chargeback.
RDR, on the other hand, works exactly like a chargeback, but it doesn’t count toward your chargeback ratio. It requires no human intervention, and it automatically debits the amount of the transaction from your bank account, just like a chargeback. One key feature is that you, as a business owner, can create rules on how RDR cases are handled. Maybe you want to refund every case under $50 automatically or only refund specific chargeback reason codes. There are a variety of rules that can be created to tailor RDR to your specific needs. You can turn these services off and on as it suits you.
Those of you familiar with these tools may be asking, “What about Order Insight?” Good catch. OI has been enhanced with Compelling Evidence 3.0 (CE3.0), which is specific to Visa 10.4 disputes (fraud card-absent environment). CE3.0 provides transaction information to issuing banks directly to identify and block misuse of the chargeback system, thereby helping keep your chargeback ratios down.
Nothing pairs better with all these tools than a gateway designed around your business needs and goals. NATS? No problem. Load balancing and cascading? We’ve got it covered. Level 1 PCI-compliant? Of course!
I know that’s a lot of information to unpack, but the good news is, we are in it together! Contact us today with any questions. Happy New Year!
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