What Is VAMP and What Changed in 2025?
Visa’s Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) is a global initiative to monitor and control fraud and dispute levels across the payments ecosystem. The number of transactions that are reported as fraudulent (TC40s) or disputed (TC15s) in relation to the total amount of settled transactions is used to assess a merchant’s risk profile.
Visa combined its fraud and dispute monitoring initiatives into one cohesive framework, VAMP, in 2025. Visa now tracks fraud and chargebacks using a single statistic rather than two:
VAMP Ratio = (Fraud Reports [TC40] + Disputes [TC15]) ÷ Settled Transactions [TC05]
The major update: Visa has clarified that several key resolution tools do not count toward the VAMP ratio, including:
- Verifi CDRN Alerts
- Verifi RDR Alerts
- Compelling Evidence 3.0 (CE 3.0) Resolutions
- (Likely) Ethoca Alerts
This is a significant change. Previously, many merchants were penalized even after proactively resolving disputes. Now, resolved Chargeback Alerts and CE 3.0 cases won’t inflate your VAMP ratio. For high-risk merchants and payment providers, this is a strong incentive to invest in alert-based deflection and modern resolution strategies.
Understanding the New VAMP Thresholds
Visa defines two key thresholds to determine if a merchant is in violation:
| Region | VAMP Ratio | Fraud/Dispute Count | Monitoring Status |
| US, Canada, EU, AP | ≥ 220 bps | ≥ 1,500 events | Excessive |
| CEMEA | ≥ 220 bps | ≥ 150 events + ≥ $75,000 USD | Excessive |
Note: 100 basis points = 1%
What does this mean?
If 2.2% or more of your settled transactions are reported as fraud or disputes and you exceed the event count threshold, Visa will classify your merchant account as “excessive”. This can trigger financial penalties, increased reserve requirements and in some cases, termination of your ability to accept payments.
Starting April 2026, Visa will reduce this tolerance by tightening the VAMP ratio from 220 bps to 150 bps, raising the bar for compliance even higher.
Visa also introduced a monitoring threshold for enumeration (card testing) risk:
- Enumeration Ratio: ≥ 2,000 bps (20%)
- Enumeration Transaction Count: ≥ 300,000 events
This puts high-volume, low-ticket verticals like digital goods, online marketplaces and travel at particular risk, especially if fraud prevention isn’t optimized pre-transaction.
Why These Changes Matter for Merchants and PSPs
Merchants that take proactive measures to settle disputes are rewarded by this most recent VAMP update. Visa is promoting the usage of modern fraud and dispute resolution platforms by removing Verifi CDRN, Verifi RDR, CE 3.0 and possibly Ethoca Alerts from the VAMP ratio. Chargeback Alerts enable merchants to settle disputes or issue refunds to consumers prior to a chargeback being submitted, all without raising their fraud or dispute ratios.
This is especially valuable for:
- PSPs and PayFacs managing large or high-risk portfolios
- Merchants who rely on solutions for chargebacks and fraud
- Subscription or low-dollar businesses where fraud is harder to spot
By staying below the VAMP ratio, you can lower risk at the point of transaction, resolve disputes quickly and avoid penalties. On the other hand, a delayed response may result in increased costs, frozen accounts and damage to the brand. Especially in light of the impending threshold tightening.
How PayShield Helps You Stay Below VAMP Thresholds
To reduce VAMP vulnerability and maintain compliance, PayShield provides fraud and dispute solutions designed for merchants, payment facilitators and payment processors.
Chargeback Alerts
For merchants and payment providers with significant dispute volumes, we offer great flexibility and volume pricing for when processing Verifi CDRN, RDR and Ethoca Alerts. Fully utilizing these Chargeback Alerts are the best way to prevent chargebacks without incurring penalties because they will not have an effect on your VAMP ratio.
Dispute Intelligence
Dispute Intelligence simplifies chargeback response handling, letting merchants set rules to automatically act on Chargeback Alerts at scale and protect ratios without needing manual intervention.
Transaction Risk API
Our real-time transaction risk and fraud scoring system, is ideal for identifying fake IDs, bot-driven fraud and card testing. It also evaluates identity data, behavioral indicators and device attributes to determine the validity of every transaction before approving it.
3D Secure 2.2 (3DS)
For digital-first merchants, we provide 3D Secure deployment, limiting the use of authentication to orders deemed high-risk. By doing this, fraud counts are kept low and acceptance rates are maintained at high levels.
Together, these tools help merchants act before fraud becomes measurable and resolve disputes before they affect VAMP metrics.
Final Thoughts & What to Do Now
In addition to being a significant step toward improved risk oversight, Visa’s most recent modifications with the VAMP framework also indicate that the rules are improving. Merchants and PSPs must take prompt action to maintain compliance as there is a reduced tolerance for fraud and dispute behavior.
Fortunately, products such as CE 3.0 and Chargeback Alerts are now fully VAMP-neutral. This implies that early resolution benefits your risk profile in addition to the customer experience.
When working in high-risk verticals or handling huge numbers, it’s time to:
- Examine your present dispute and fraud percentages.
- Invest in automation, warnings, and real-time scoring.
- Collaborate with a partner who has the ability to successfully scale dispute prevention.
Do you want to lessen your risk to chargebacks and fraud? To find out how our Chargeback Alert and fraud deflection products can safeguard your company at scale, get in touch with PayShield today.
