BlueSnap is committed to helping ensure a positive merchant and cardholder experience and keeping you apprised of new or revised Card Brand standards. MasterCard has revised its standards for merchants processing subscriptions, recurring billing, and negative option billing. To remain in compliance, merchants must adhere to the revised standards by September 22, 2022.

As with similar Visa standards already in place, the revised standards will help mitigate and reduce the risk of negative cardholder experiences and subsequent disputes.

If you are using our Payment API, it is important that you review the updated standards against your process flow to ensure full compliance.

If you are using our hosted pages, we have made updates there and to our Subscription Billing Engine product to ensure our merchants can comply with the updated standards.

Merchant Requirements

Merchants must clearly disclose the basic terms of the subscription at the point of payment and capture the cardholder’s affirmative acceptance of such terms. The disclosure must include the price that will be billed and the frequency of the billing. For example, "You will be billed USD 9.95 per month until you cancel the subscription."

Merchants who utilize a negative option billing model must also disclose the terms of the trial, including any initial charges, the length of the trial period, and the price and frequency of the subsequent subscription. For example, "You will be billed USD 2.99 today for a 30-day trial. Once the trial ends, you will be billed USD 19.99 each month thereafter until you cancel."