Visa Adds Chargeback Rights to Its Rapidly Growing Interlink Card

Visa USA announced it is now offering chargeback rights to consumers holding its Interlink PIN debit card. The bank card network sees the extension of chargeback protection to PIN debit as a response to consumer expectation and a competitive edge for Interlink issuers. “As debit usage continues to grow, consumers have come to expect the same protections on PIN purchases afforded by other Visa card products,” said Stacey Pinkard, a senior vice president at Visa, in a statement. The chargeback rights, which took effect yesterday, apply only to Interlink transactions interchanged through Visa, not to on-us transactions. On-us volume is reportedly a very small percentage of Interlink traffic. Under the terms of the new rights, consumers who have first tried to resolve issues with the merchant can dispute Interlink transactions with the issuing bank if: the merchant was unable or unwilling to provide services; merchandise was not received; the merchant did not provide the goods or services documented to the consumer at the time of the transaction; merchandise arrived damaged, defective, or otherwise unsuitable. More than 980 financial institutions issue Interlink. There are 87 million Interlink-branded cards in circulation, up 17 million from a year ago, and the card is accepted at nearly 1.3 million merchant locations. Transaction volume, which hit nearly 1 billion in 2003, is exceeding 300 million per quarter. Unlike payments on Visa's check card debit product, for which consumers sign receipts, Interlink transactions require cardholders to enter a PIN at the point of sale as authentication. Last month, Visa gave its issuers greater incentive to promote Interlink when it increased interchange rates on the product, effective April 1 (Digital Transactions News, Nov. 3).