Visa Changed the Rules for Commercial Card Savings. Are Your Merchants Ready?
For years, one of the most effective ways for businesses to reduce the cost of accepting commercial cards was to submit Level 2 or Level 3 transaction data. For the right merchant, providing additional details—such as a purchase-order number, sales-tax amount and line-item information—could help eligible transactions qualify for more favorable interchange categories.
Visa has now changed that process.
With the Commercial Enhanced Data Program, or CEDP, Visa is placing much greater emphasis on the completeness and accuracy of the transaction data being submitted. The former Level 3 structure was replaced by CEDP Product 3 in October 2025, and Visa retired its traditional Level 2 interchange incentive for most U.S. commercial-card transactions in April 2026.
For merchant service agents, this is more than a technical network update. It creates a timely reason to reconnect with B2B merchants, examine how they accept commercial cards and determine whether their current payment setup is still working in their favor.
First, What Is Enhanced Transaction Data?
Every card transaction contains basic information, including the merchant, transaction date and purchase amount. Commercial transactions can also carry information that resembles the detail found on an invoice.
Historically, the industry grouped this information into three levels:
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Level 1: Basic transaction and merchant information.
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Level 2: Additional details such as sales-tax information and a customer or purchaser code.
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Level 3: Detailed invoice and line-item information, potentially including product descriptions, quantities, unit costs, freight, discounts, purchase-order numbers and destination postal codes.
This richer information is valuable to businesses and government agencies because it supports expense management, reporting and reconciliation. Card networks have historically encouraged merchants to provide it by making lower interchange categories available on certain eligible commercial-card transactions.
What Visa’s CEDP Changes
Under CEDP, filling in enhanced-data fields is not necessarily enough. Visa is looking for information that is complete, consistent and commercially meaningful.
For example, a transaction could have problems if every product is described as “miscellaneous,” the quantity and unit price do not support the line total, the tax information conflicts with the invoice, or required fields are missing or improperly formatted.
In other words, the goal is no longer merely to populate the fields. The information needs to reflect the underlying transaction.
Visa also introduced a CEDP participation fee of 0.05%—five basis points—on applicable commercial transactions carrying enhanced data. Depending on how the merchant’s program is configured, the fee may apply even when the information does not ultimately earn the intended interchange treatment.
That creates an important risk: a merchant could be submitting enhanced data and paying the associated program fee without consistently receiving the expected benefit.
Why This Matters to Merchant Service Sales Agents
Commercial-card optimization can reveal opportunities that will never appear in a simple rate comparison.
A merchant may tell you that its processor charges a competitive markup. That does not tell you whether its transactions are qualifying appropriately, whether its gateway is transmitting useful invoice data or whether its current system supports Visa’s updated requirements.
The merchant’s effective cost can be affected by several components:
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The types of cards its customers use
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Whether transactions are authorized and settled correctly
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How quickly authorized transactions are submitted for clearing
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Whether required enhanced data is captured and transmitted
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Whether that information passes network validation
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The merchant’s pricing model and processor markup
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Additional gateway, platform and network fees
This gives agents an opportunity to move the conversation away from “What rate are you paying?” and toward a more valuable question: “How are your commercial-card transactions actually qualifying?”
What Is an Interchange Downgrade?
Each interchange category has qualification requirements. When a transaction fails to meet the requirements for the most favorable category available to it, it may qualify at a higher-cost category. This is commonly called a downgrade.
Potential causes include:
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Missing or inaccurate enhanced data
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Late settlement
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Authorization and settlement information that does not match properly
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Incorrect card-not-present or stored-credential indicators
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A gateway that captures enhanced data but does not pass it through correctly
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A POS, invoicing platform or ERP integration that cannot support the necessary fields
Not every higher-cost transaction will literally say “downgrade” on the merchant statement. Finding the issue may require reviewing interchange qualification detail rather than looking only at the processor’s quoted markup.
Which Merchants Should Agents Talk To?
CEDP is not equally relevant to every business. A consumer-focused coffee shop or salon is unlikely to have the same opportunity as a distributor that receives large invoice payments on purchasing cards.
Good prospects may include:
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Manufacturers and wholesalers
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Building-material and industrial suppliers
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Government contractors
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Medical, dental and laboratory suppliers
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Commercial equipment dealers
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Automotive-parts distributors
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Freight and logistics companies
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Technology and business-services providers
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Any company regularly paid by corporate, purchasing or government cards
The opportunity becomes more meaningful when the merchant has substantial commercial-card volume, large average tickets or both.
Five Discovery Questions to Ask
Agents do not need to become interchange engineers to start the conversation. These five questions can uncover whether a closer review is warranted:
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What percentage of your card volume comes from businesses or government agencies?
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Do customers regularly pay invoices with corporate, purchasing or government cards?
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Does your current gateway collect purchase-order, tax and line-item information?
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Does that information flow automatically from your invoicing or ERP system, or does someone enter it manually?
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Has your provider reviewed your commercial-card qualification since Visa retired the traditional Level 2 program?
If the merchant cannot answer the last question—or has never seen transaction-level qualification detail—that is a strong reason to request a statement and conduct a deeper analysis.
The key is recommending the solution that best fits the merchant’s business model, customer base, and the applicable laws and card brand rules in their market.
Keep the Savings Conversation Accurate
Enhanced data does not guarantee a specific rate or savings amount. Qualification depends on the card product, merchant category, transaction details, processing method, data quality, current network requirements and the capabilities of every system involved.
The merchant’s pricing agreement matters as well. Under an interchange-plus arrangement, improved qualification can be easier to identify and pass through. Under flat-rate or bundled pricing, a reduction in underlying interchange may not automatically change what the merchant pays.
Agents should therefore avoid promising that “Level 3 always lowers the rate.” A better and more accurate position is:
“If commercial cards represent a meaningful part of your business, we can review how those transactions are being processed, determine whether your current system supports the necessary enhanced data and identify potential qualification issues.”
That is a consultative conversation grounded in the merchant’s actual transaction mix—not a one-size-fits-all promise.
Turn a Network Change Into a Merchant Conversation
Many B2B merchants do not know that Visa changed its commercial-card data program. Others may believe they are still receiving Level 2 or Level 3 benefits simply because their gateway displays those fields.
Merchant service agents have an opportunity to bring clarity to that confusion.
Start with merchants that accept large invoice payments from businesses and government entities. Ask how their systems capture and transmit enhanced data. Review their statements for commercial-card volume and qualification patterns. Then work with your processor to determine whether their gateway, integration and processing configuration support a more effective approach.
The value is not merely offering a lower quoted rate. It is helping the merchant understand where its payment costs come from—and making sure its payment technology is aligned with the way it does business today
Have a merchant that accepts a high volume of corporate, purchasing or government cards? Contact your SignaPay representative to discuss a commercial-card processing review and determine whether enhanced-data optimization may be appropriate.
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