MasterCard Lifts the Veil on Acquiring Rules for ISOs, Other Nonbanks

Addressing a longstanding complaint of independent sales organizations and other nonbank acquirers, MasterCard International has published its operating rules for what the card company calls member service providers. MasterCard says the 291-page document, entitled “Member Service Provider Rules Manual,” is now available free, and has posted a PDF for download. ISOs have long objected that bank card association rules regarding card acceptance were available only to member banks, which could make any or all of them available to non-banks at their discretion. Non-bank acquirers have said this complicates training of new sales agent and makes it difficult to stay abreast of rules changes. “MSPs previously only had access to abridged rules through their sponsoring acquirers, at a cost to the acquirer,” the Purchase, N.Y.-based card network said today in a statement. “The rules will now be available to all interested parties at no charge. The distribution of the rules to MSPs follows MasterCard's decision last year to enhance its merchant Web site, and make the rules pertaining to merchant acceptance available to the merchant community.” The decision to make card-acceptance rules widely available comes at a time when MasterCard and other card networks are contending with a wide range of issues concerning the acquiring business, from data security at merchant and acquirer locations to merchant sensitivity over interchange to the introduction of promising new acceptance technology, such as contactless cards and readers. The manual, which MasterCard says is a new publication, encompasses excerpts from other association member publications that touch on acquiring, and includes rules for MasterCard's PIN debit brands, Cirrus and Maestro, as well as for the namesake brand. It contains seven chapters covering such topics as collection of funds, access to merchant information, registration requirements for ISOs and other MSPs, transaction fraud, and merchant agreements, screening, and monitoring. Among the excerpts are those from the MasterCard publications “Chargeback Guide” and “Security Rules and Procedures,” which includes discussion of card-validation codes, PINs, excessive chargebacks, and MasterCard's site-data protection program, along with other subjects. The publication has been posted for download at www.mastercardmerchant.com/acquirers/index.html.