Visa Account Updater allows merchants or their acquirers to submit a batch file containing stored Visa PANs and expiry dates to Visa for comparison against issuer records
Visa queries participating issuing banks and returns an update file indicating for each submitted PAN whether it has changed (new account number), the expiry has changed, the account is closed, or no change is found
The batch file is typically submitted via a secure file transfer mechanism to the acquirer, who forwards it to Visa; response files are available after a processing window (verify current timelines with Visa documentation)
Merchants should run VAU batch requests before a recurring billing cycle to update their stored credentials and reduce expiry-driven declines
Update responses indicating a new account number should trigger a credential update in the merchant's token vault; closed-account responses should cancel the associated subscription or notify the customer
Merchants must be enrolled in VAU through their acquirer and must have agreed to the data handling requirements set by Visa
Known gotchas
VAU participation is voluntary for issuers; some issuing banks may not participate, meaning no update data will be returned for their cards even if credentials have changed
Submitted PANs must be Visa cards; submitting non-Visa PANs will result in errors or ignored records depending on the acquirer's implementation
The VAU batch file format specifications are defined by Visa and may be version-specific; always reference the current Visa technical specification rather than relying on historical documentation
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