MCC Controls
What are MCC's?
A Merchant Category Code (MCC) is a four-digit number that classifies a business by the type of goods or services it provides.
It is defined under the ISO 18245 standard and is sent with each card authorisation.
The acquiring bank assigns the code when it onboards a merchant, based on the merchant’s primary line of business.
Because the code is assigned by the merchant’s bank rather than the card issuer, it can sometimes be inaccurate or ambiguous, which matters when controls rely on it.
Incorrect CategorisationPlease raise with Customer Support where you spot a merchant incorrectly categorised so this can be raised with the relevant payment scheme.
Adding MCC Constraints to Cards
As a card issuer, you may wish to have specific handling for certain MCC codes depending on what you want to use cards for.
As a part of the CONSTRAINTS section in the CREATE Card API’s (Create Virtual Card and Create Physical Card) you are now able to select whether you want to add an ALLOW list or a BLOCK list to a specific card.
You can only have one per card, either ALLOW or BLOCK
The ALLOW list is where you wish that card to only allow specific MCC’s to be transacted on for that card, if an authorisation is received to the card which has an MCC that is not included on the ALLOW list then that authorisation will be declined.
The BLOCK list is where you wish that card to block specific MCC’s to be transacted on for that card, if an authorisation is received to the card which has an MCC that is in the BLOCK list then that authorisation will be declined.
You can add single MCC’s, many MCC’s or a specific range of MCC’s to either list for that card.
To add a number of MCC's you will need to use a comma delineator to separate the MCC's
You will need to add the four digit MCC to the action you wish and not the type of merchant or a specific merchant
MCC Constraint Management
As well as being able to add a specific ALLOW or BLOCK constraint to a card you are also able to manage them for all cards they are applied to.
If you have an existing set of constraints already set at the Partner / Customer level then the card level constraint for MCC’s will take precedence
If you wish to add a new MCC constraint to an existing card the you can use Add MCC Constraint to existing card (same validations exist for adding this constraint at the time of creating the card)
If you wish to update the action of a specific constraint from BLOCK to ALLOW or vice versa then you can use Update MCC Constraint
Equally if you want to remove an MCC constraint from a card the you can use Remove MCC Constraint
Soft RemovalRemoving is a soft delete, the data will still be available if required but the constraint will no longer be applied to new authorisations.
You will also get the MCC constraints back when you request to retrieve your card details on Retrieve Card Details
On any call that has details of the card you will get a view of the constraint applied to the card if one has been applied
Updated about 7 hours ago