Unlock more ways to get paid

Accept card payments with your phone

Visa Accept is a Visa solution designed to enable micro-sellers and small businesses to accept card payments with their mobile phone - offered by participating banks or partners through their mobile apps. It provides a simple, low-cost way for merchants to start accepting digital payments without the need for traditional point-of-sale (POS) hardware.

Visa Accept refers to the underlying technical solution that powers this capability, which may be offered by banks or other partners under different names depending on the market.

Visa Accept is intended for micro-sellers — from market stall vendors and food carts to independent professionals and home-service providers, who are beginning to accept card payments, or who have been operating on cash or local digital payments and want to add card acceptance. 

If your business is established with high transaction volumes, a formal merchant account through your bank may be a more appropriate starting point.

By enrolling in Visa Accept, sellers agree to their bank's terms and conditions, which includes the prohibition of the sale of illegal goods or services and restrict activities in high-risk categories such as gambling and adult services. Banks monitor transaction activity to detect prohibited categories. Sellers found to be operating outside permitted categories will have their Visa Accept access terminated.

You can use your existing Visa Debit or reloadable Prepaid credential in your name to set up a seller profile and begin accepting card payments through a participating issuer bank app.

Customers can make payment through tapping a card/contactless mobile wallet app on your phone or via an online payment link.

Payment received will be credited to the card that you used to set up your profile in near real time.

Sign up through a participating bank. Please check with the paticipating banks on the sign up process.

Account set up

A Visa Debit or reloadable Prepaid card with the participating bank is needed.

Device

A smartphone with OS version Android 12.0 API 31 or iOS 17.4 or later. NFC-enabled Android phone will have the ability to accept Tap to Pay transactions otherwise payment link is available for non-NFC enabled phones.

Tap to Pay on Visa Accept

A separate app called ""Tap to Pay Ready"" must be downloaded to enable the tap function on Android — this download is prompted within the registration flow. The app can be found in Playstore. No additional interaction with that app is required once downloaded.

Sellers

Accepting payment via Visa Accept's Tap to Pay function is only available on NFC- enabled Android phones currently. iPhone capability is in development and will be available soon.

For iPhones, use the payment link function to accept payment.

Customers

Both Android and iPhone can be used to tap to make payment

To use Visa Accept, logging in on the seller's banking app using the seller's own credentials is required. It does not support multiple permission levels or separate logins for staff within one account for sellers with staff.

The NFC function is location at the top half of the back of your smartphone. Tap the card or mobile phone at this location for best detection and hold the card/mobile phone there till the transaction is processed.

Tap to Pay function is only available on Android phones currently.

A separate app called ""Tap to Pay Ready"" must be downloaded to enable the tap function on Android. This app will work in the background. You do not have to deliberately open the app to accept Tap payments. Simply use your banking app to accept payments after ""Tap to Pay Ready"" app has been downloaded.

Tap to pay

All Visa debit and credit cards with contactless function enabled. Both physical cards and virtual cards stored on contactless mobile payment apps like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay work.

Payment link

All Visa debit and credit cards.

Mastercard acceptance depend on your issuer; check with your bank to confirm what is enabled on your account.

Cross-border transactions depend on your issuer; check with your bank to confirm what is enabled on your account.

Visa Accept is designed to be accessible to small sellers at a low and competitive cost. There is no complex setup and no hardware deposit required — unlike a traditional card terminal.

For the latest information, please check with the participating banks.

The payment link expires in 10mins.

Send a new payment link if the first payment link has expired.

Payment links and receipt can only be sent via SMS/email currently. Some participating issuers may allow email sharing only.

Yes, you can do a partial or full refund via Tap or payment link to the same card that was used for payment. The seller will ask you to verify the same card is ready for the refund to be initiated via tapping the card onto the phone of the seller, or via an online checkout page accesible via a link that will be provided by the seller.

No, scanning the QR code in Visa Accept will lead the customers to an online payment page for the customer to enter their card details to make payment.

Please use a generic QR code scanner to scan the QR code. QR code scanner from mobile wallets or banking app will not work.

The QR code in Visa Accept will open up to an online payment page for the customer to enter their card details to make payment, not direct payment in the mobile wallet/banking app.

Payment settles directly to your Visa debit or reloadable prepaid card that you selected during the set up in near real time via Visa Direct — which will in most cases also reflect in your linked bank account.

Visa Accept eliminates several of the most common fraud risks that affect sellers — both for digital payments and cash.

Fake payment confirmation scams: With local digital wallet payments, the customer enters the amount and sends the seller a screenshot or notification as proof — something that can be fabricated, duplicated, or show a transaction that was later reversed. With Visa Accept, the seller enters the amount, the customer taps or completes the payment, and both the seller's and customer's devices show simultaneous, real-time confirmation from the payment network. 

Counterfeit and damaged cash: When a customer pays by card through Visa Accept, payment is digital and confirmed through the banking network — there is no cash to authenticate, no change to give, and no dispute about physical currency. For the portion of your sales you shift to card, this risk is eliminated entirely."

The sales dashboard inside the bank app records every card transaction — amount, date, and description. You and your bank can see the volume and value of your card sales, at any time, in one place.

Why this matters for your business: Sellers who operate entirely in cash or through local digital wallets have no institutional transaction record. Without that record, they are invisible to the formal financial system — unable to demonstrate their income, trading history, or business activity to a bank. That invisibility is what blocks access to credit, business loans, and growth capital. Visa Accept creates the record that makes those doors openable — a bank-verified history of your sales, built automatically every time a customer pays by card.

The dashboard is a tool for you. The transaction history dashboard is a practical management tool: it gives you a clear view of your card sales over time, helps you track what you have been paid, and provides documentation you can refer back to — without any manual record-keeping on your part. It records card transactions only, not your cash or local digital wallet sales.

Visa Accept gives sellers a stronger position in disputes than cash or screenshot-based payment methods, because the transaction record is institution-grade and tamper-proof. Built-in protections also limit the risk of low-value dispute abuse.

Each completed transaction is recorded with a timestamp, a fixed amount set by the seller, and confirmation generated by the payment network — not by a screenshot that a party could manipulate.

If a customer disputes a charge or says they didn't intend to pay a certain amount:
- The transaction record in the dashboard shows the exact amount the seller entered and the exact moment it was confirmed.
- Where your issuer supports it, partial and full refunds can be initiated by the seller through Visa Accept — returned to the same card used for the original payment. Check with your bank to confirm whether refunds are available on your account.

How refunds work (where available):
- Refunds are always returned to the same card used for the original purchase — funds cannot be redirected to a different card or account.
- The refund amount is deducted from the seller's account in near real time.
- The refunded funds typically become available to the buyer one business day after the refund is processed (T+1), not instantly. This buffer gives the bank time to review the transaction if needed and prevents misuse of the refund function.

If a transaction fails mid-process: No money is moved if the transaction does not complete. A failed Tap to Pay attempt leaves the customer's card uncharged — you can verify this in the dashboard (the transaction will not appear as completed).

Formal chargebacks:
If a cardholder raises a formal dispute with their issuing bank (a "chargeback"), it is handled through Visa's standard dispute resolution process — the same consumer protection framework that applies to any Visa card transaction globally. Your bank is the primary point of contact if this occurs. Disputes are managed through Visa's Resolve Online system.

Automated account protection:
If dispute or fraud reports on your seller account reach a certain threshold, your Visa Accept access may be automatically suspended while your bank investigates. This automated safeguard is triggered by patterns of reported disputes, not by individual disputes — it is designed to protect the broader ecosystem and ensure that your bank can review activity promptly.

Who to contact when something goes wrong: Your bank's customer support line is the first point of contact for any transaction problem — the issuer bank operates and supports the Visa Accept feature in their app.

If you contact your bank and staff cannot assist, request escalation to a digital banking specialist.

When your Visa Accept activity reaches the monthly thresholds set by your issuer, you will be unable to accept further Visa Accept card payments until the start of the next calendar month.

If your business consistently reaches the limits: This is a signal that you may have outgrown the micro-sellers tier. Your bank can help you transition to a full merchant account, which removes the monthly limits and gives you access to standard card acceptance. The transition requires your bank to complete standard merchant due diligence — the same checks that apply to any business accepting card payments at scale. A smoother, more automated graduation path is being developed to make this transition easier

Important: Opening additional accounts or splitting transactions across accounts to work around the limit is not permitted under the program terms and could result in your Visa Accept access being suspended. 

Card acceptance: Visa Accept adds card acceptance to your payment tools repertoire and expands the range of customers who can buy from you.

Enabling payments from tourists: International visitors generally cannot access or do not have local digital wallet apps. Visa Accept may allow you to accept their cards, subject to your issuer enabling cross-border acceptance.

Reduce fraud risk: Visa Accept eliminates the risk of falsified payment confirmations because the seller enters the amount and the transaction is confirmed simultaneously on both devices. There is no screenshot, no customer-entered amount, and no delay that creates a window for manipulation.

Sales dashboard: Transactions made via Visa Accept builds a bank-visible transaction record that local wallet apps do not produce. The transaction history dashboard is a practical management tool: it gives you a clear view of your card sales over time, helps you track what you have been paid, and provides documentation you can refer back to — without any manual record-keeping on your part. It records card transactions only, not your cash or local digital wallet sales.