Visa has withdrawn its requirement for merchants to include an "end of trial" notice in a cardholder's billing statement charge descriptor for a charge following a free trial in a subscription program. As you recall, Visa's revised rules for free trials (which were announced in April 2019, to become effective in April 2020) would require merchants to identify a charge following a free trial in a recurring charge program in a consumer's billing statement descriptor field, using a notation such as "endoftrial" or the like. This requirement resulted in significant merchant pushback given the operational challenges it posed. In response, Visa announced in April 2020 that it was postponing compliance for this requirement until April 17, 2021.
Facing even more pushback from merchants and recognizing the challenges these stakeholders faced in implementing technology updates posed by covid-19, Visa informed card issuers, processors and acquirers (Visa doesn't "speak" directly with merchants) that it was making the descriptor requirement optional for merchants. All other rule changes for free trial offers that convert to a recurring paid program are still in effect. If you did not receive our initial summary of these changes, please let us know and we will forward.
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