Deep Dive: Visa Direct

Visa Direct contains three distinct APIs that you can use to create services that incorporate push payments. Each of these APIs is described in more detail in the following sections.

The Funds Transfer API includes operations to pull funds from a Visa Card, push funds to a Visa card, and return funds to a Visa card in the event that a push funds transaction fails.

The Mobile Push Payment API has been optimized for mobile-to-mobile card-less merchant payments.

The Watch List Screening API provides Originators who are building cross-border services with a means to prescreen sender information against the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Specially-Designated Nationals (SDN) sanctions list.

Visa Direct provides Originators (financial institutions and eligible third parties such as person-to-person payment service providers, merchants, corporations, financial technology companies and service providers, through their applicable financial institutions) with a mechanism to push payments directly into Visa card accounts. This push payment capability is delivered through the use of the Original Credit Transaction (OCT), a Visa network transaction that enables eligible Visa cards to receive push payment credits. Visa Direct Originators can submit OCTs either as ISO-formatted messages through a Visa network endpoint connection or directly into the Visa network as an API call using the Funds Transfer APIs. Originators can use this transaction and the underlying framework of rules and controls to create new consumer and business-facing services.

An OCT can be funded through a variety of sources; for example, any network payment account or a bank account. In addition to the OCT, Visa Direct also supports the Account Funding Transaction (AFT), a Visa network transaction that enables funds to be pulled from an eligible Visa account. As with the OCT, Visa Direct Originators can submit AFT transactions as either an ISO message or directly through an API call to the Funds Transfer APIs.

Originators can use the Funds Transfer APIs (or the ISO transaction) to pull funds (the AFT) from a Visa card account and to push funds (the OCT) into a Visa card account. AFTs can only be used to fund other non-merchant accounts. Once an AFT or OCT transaction is submitted into Visa (via API or ISO message), it travels across the Visa network and uses existing clearing and settlement mechanisms to manage the movement of funds between the sending and receiving issuers.

Source Fintech Wrap Up