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Card Validation
Code 2 (CVC 2) and
Card Verification
Value 2 (CVV2) Security Features
MasterCard’s CVC 2 and Visa’s CVV2 are valuable fraud-prevention tools
that help protect merchants who process card-not-present transactions.
The three-digit values help verify that a customer has a genuine MasterCard
or Visa card and that the account number is legitimate. With this information,
merchants can make better decisions about non-face-to-face sales. Visa
estimates that the use of CVV2 will reduce fraud-related chargebacks by
as much as 26%. Best of all, our merchants will soon be able to download
the necessary software upgrades and benefit from these security features
free of charge.
CVC 2 and CVV2 are indent printed on the back of MasterCard and Visa
cards. These values appear in the signature panel, following the 16-digit
account number. They are not encoded in the magnetic stripe and they do
not print on sales receipts. The codes should be used only during authorization
requests.
Merchants may not store CVC 2 or CVV2
values for any reason.
To request CVC 2 or CVV2 validation, merchants must submit
the following information:
- Account number
- Expiration date
- CVC 2 or CVV2 value
- Transaction dollar amount
Issuing banks check the values against the credit card information and
return "match" or "no match" responses.
- Effective March 1999,
issuers and acquirers must be certified to process authorization requests
containing CVV2 data. CVC 2 processing became mandatory on April 1,
2001.
- Merchants are not required to submit these
values, as interchange rates are not affected.
Merchants should note that CVC 2 and CVV2 processing helps
you decide if customers are legitimate. Equally important, issuers will
no longer be able to successfully impose chargebacks on mail/telephone
order (MO/TO) and non-SET electronic-commerce sales transactions if they
fail to process the CVC 2 or CVV2 data transmitted to them by merchants.
Check with these sites for additional information:
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