Very poor info about transactions on Visa cards

Alex9384

I'm wondering if other poeple aren't bothered about the lack of info about their transactions in online banking and apps if they use Visa cards?

I aksed a couple banks why they don't show more info. They said it's what Visa provides to them.

An example:

I bought a coffee with Visa card. Transactions shows "Costa Coffee", but it's impossible to tell which Costa.

Another example:
Transactions shows as "Leicester". Nothing more! You know what that was for? Inflating my car tyres. If I use MasterCard, it shows Air... something AND location.

In addition to that, banks like TSB show when your transaction was cleared, rather than when the purchase was made.
I bought a coffee 2 days ago with my new TSB card. The app says I bought the coffee today. Even after clicking on the transaction, there's no one single thing saying that the purchase was actually made on the 26th October. It only shows 28th October, which is false.

Are most customers OK with that?

eskbanker

I think that card providers receive plenty of raw data from the merchant banks and it's essentially up to them to choose what to share on statements, etc.

You're seeing this as a Visa versus Mastercard issue but I don't believe that's valid, unless you're comparing Visa and Mastercard data for the same bank, which is obviously unlikely.

Alex9384

eskbanker said:

I think that card providers receive plenty of raw data from the merchant banks and it's essentially up to them to choose what to share on statements, etc.

You're seeing this as a Visa versus Mastercard issue but I don't believe that's valid, unless you're comparing Visa and Mastercard data for the same bank, which is obviously unlikely.

By card providers you mean Visa and MC?

Well, I just swapped my Santander Visa debit for their new MC debit.

I will repeat a few purchases on the same places and compare what it's shown in online banking.

eskbanker

Alex9384 said:

eskbanker said:

I think that card providers receive plenty of raw data from the merchant banks and it's essentially up to them to choose what to share on statements, etc.

You're seeing this as a Visa versus Mastercard issue but I don't believe that's valid, unless you're comparing Visa and Mastercard data for the same bank, which is obviously unlikely.

By card providers you mean Visa and MC?

Well, I just swapped my Santander Visa debit for their new MC debit.

I will repeat a few purchases on the same places and compare what it's shown in online banking.

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Alex9384

eskbanker said:

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Thanks. Then it seems like they were lying to me when they said they are just showing the info how Visa are feeding it to them.

callum9999

Alex9384 said:

eskbanker said:

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Thanks. Then it seems like they were lying to me when they said they are just showing the info how Visa are feeding it to them.

Welcome to the 21st Century. A depressingly high proportion of people now have little interest in the actual truth - they just come up with something in their head and pretend that it's an undeniable fact. I think you're going to have to get used to it!

[Deleted User]

Alex9384 said:

eskbanker said:

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Thanks. Then it seems like they were lying to me when they said they are just showing the info how Visa are feeding it to them.

That may well be the case, but a more likely reason is total ignorance by customer service staff, which sadly, is very common these days 

DullGreyGuy

[Deleted User] said:

Alex9384 said:

eskbanker said:

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Thanks. Then it seems like they were lying to me when they said they are just showing the info how Visa are feeding it to them.

That may well be the case, but a more likely reason is total ignorance by customer service staff, which sadly, is very common these days 

Ignorance combined with corporate urban myth... new starter hears one of the seniors say its down to Visa and assumes it must be true, this then becomes self perpetuating. 

Reality is no training will ever cover off every single possible question a customer will ask and with constant pressure on staff to keep their average handling time down in many cases they wont want to spend 10 minutes queuing to ask a manager (nor will the customer appreciate the wait) and in most organisations managers are no more technically trained than the front line staff, indeed in some places they are less well trained technically. 

The correct answer probably should be that its the info that they put on statements/online banking and they dont know why some person at some time decided that was the business requirement... unfortunately that's not going to satisfy most customers even if a fuller explanation that yes Visa does provide more data but we decided this was the optimal amount to show probably isnt much better.

With these types of things after a few years no one will even remember who decided if to show a data field or not or if passwords should be 8 or 10 characters long etc. 

eDicky

Alex9384 said:

In addition to that, banks like TSB show when your transaction was cleared, rather than when the purchase was made.
I bought a coffee 2 days ago with my new TSB card. The app says I bought the coffee today. Even after clicking on the transaction, there's no one single thing saying that the purchase was actually made on the 26th October. It only shows 28th October, which is false.

Are most customers OK with that?

This could be because in the case of a non-sterling transaction, during the two or three days pending, the exchange rate is sure to vary. So it's shown as the final GBP amount on the date of settlement, according to that day's rate. Common for me (although not with TSB) - I'm ok with it...

Astria

Alex9384 said:

Are most customers OK with that?

I get a notification of every card transaction, and so I get the notification of how much I've spent when I'm in the coffee shop for example, so a short description such as "Costa coffee" is fine, I don't need any more than that. It's not like I'm going to go re-read last months statement and wonder which Costa coffee it was. The longest it's taken for a transaction to appear is when I've left the store as I might not have coverage at the time, plus, considering I use my phone for most purchases, it records the GPS location of every payment should I need the information in the future. I've seen some shops show up on statements before as in London, even though I'm like 200 miles away, I assume this is because this is where the payment was processed.

eskbanker

Alex9384 said:

eskbanker said:

No, by card providers I mean the companies that provide you with cards, so Santander or TSB in your case.

The data exchanged between banks for all card purchases is based on a standardised protocol (defined by APACS) with many data fields, some relevant to a customer but many not, so it's highly unlikely that the data available to each card provider differs according to whether the card is Visa or Mastercard (or Amex for that matter), but as stated above, it's up to the card providers to choose how they present that to the customer.

Thanks. Then it seems like they were lying to me when they said they are just showing the info how Visa are feeding it to them.

It depends on exactly what they said to you - they are showing the information how Visa are feeding it to them, but not all of it (as this isn't practical) and so they're choosing which of the data elements to share on their app or online banking or statements (and it can be different between these channels).

The standard protocol includes merchant name, plus location, plus postcode, as well as merchant category codes, etc, so a purchase from a chain like Costa would have 'Costa Coffee' as the merchant name with the town listed in the (separate) location field - there is inevitably a decision to be made about whether to show both of these but that doesn't make one answer right and the other wrong.

For info, here's some data included in a download of card data (that has more detail shown than online banking or app) from a Mastercard credit card, but as I understand it the same data (plus many other elements) would be transmitted for a Visa debit card transaction too:

Transaction Date	26/11/2021
Posting Date	29/11/2021
Billing Amount	£14.05
Merchant	COSTA COFFEE
Merchant City	GLOUCESTER
Merchant State
Merchant Zip	GL1 2UE
Reference Number	5.5542E+22
Debit/Credit Flag	Debit
SICMCC Code	5814