Visa Is Quietly Rewriting the Rules of Payment Disputes
"Disputes put strain on every part of the payments ecosystem, frustrating consumers, while driving cost and complexity for merchants and financial institutions."
Visa announced on April 1 six new and enhanced dispute resolution tools that use artificial intelligence and proprietary technology to address what the company describes as billions of dollars in annual costs driven by inefficient dispute processes.
According to the company, the tools are designed to reduce administrative burden, cut fraud-related losses and give merchants, issuers and acquirers greater visibility into dispute workflows.
Visa processed 106 million disputes globally in 2025, a 35% increase since 2019, as per the press release. Andrew Torre, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, told CNBC that the company's goal is to bring that growth rate down.
"Some of the challenges are that these back-office systems are still largely manual," Torre said. "We really had to think differently about how we approach this at scale."
Three of the six tools are designed for merchants. Visa Dispute Resolution Network streamlines pre-dispute handling, allowing merchants to resolve potential disputes before they escalate. A pilot is available now, with general availability planned for late 2026.
Visa Dispute Recovery Manager automates representation for merchants, managing disputes with generative AI responses and providing win prediction scoring to maximize recovery. Pilot expansion is planned for late 2026.
Order Insight, an existing tool, received an update yesterday allowing merchants to use Compelling Evidence 3.0 to share evidence with banks regarding suspicious transactions, addressing what Visa describes as friendly fraud.
Torre told CNBC that many disputes arise from cardholders not recognising a charge on their statement, and that Order Insight provides deeper transaction detail to financial institutions to resolve that confusion.
The remaining three tools target issuers and acquirers. Dispute Intelligence is powered by predictive AI models and draws on Visa's global transaction and dispute data to assist agents with case-by-case analysis. It is generally available now.
Visa’s Dispute Doc Analyzer speeds up chargeback reviews like summaries for issuers and auto-responses for acquirers, with issuer tools launching late April.
Visa Dispute Case Manager consolidates dispute workflows into a centralized platform for managing disputes across multiple card networks, from intake to resolution. General availability in North America is planned for 2026, as per the press release.
"Disputes put strain on every part of the payments ecosystem, frustrating consumers, while driving cost and complexity for merchants and financial institutions," Torre said. "Our expanded suite of dispute services gives clients the visibility they need to focus on what matters most: serving customers, launching new products and growing their businesses."
Sam Abadir, Research Director for Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime at IDC Financial Insights, said dispute management is shifting from a back-office function to a strategic priority.
"Institutions that continue to manage disputes through fragmented, manual processes are leaving recoverable revenue on the table and absorbing costs that modern workflows could eliminate," Abadir said.