The Visa Merchant Elevated Risk Program (MERP) is a new scheme monitoring program in the AP region that will come into force from October 9, 2026.
This program will work alongside the existing Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) to identify high-confidence cases of elevated risk merchant behaviour.
How does MERP identification work?
Visa will evaluate merchant performance at the individual merchant level based on the following criteria:
- Fraud and dispute volume
- Fraud and dispute rates as a percentage of overall processing volume
- Decline rates
- Other abnormal spikes in activity
If Visa identifies a high-confidence case of elevated risk merchant behaviour, they will notify us and we’ll have a ten-day window to respond.
If we cannot provide compelling evidence to refute the identification, Visa will require us to terminate the identified merchant. Visa may also increase the fraud chargeback window for the identified merchant and apply scheme assessments (fines).
Avoiding MERP identification
To avoid MERP identification you should continue to adopt the same measures as you currently do for other scheme monitoring programs such as the Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP).
Speak to your Account Manager or contact support if your business experiences high fraud and dispute ratios and volumes. We’ll proactively work with you to reduce your fraud and dispute activity if your business is at risk of being placed under a scheme monitoring program.
If we hear more information from Visa about MERP, we’ll be in touch.