You can use the Spending Settings to allow or prevent purchases at entire categories of merchants. You can still allow purchases from individual merchants within a given category using Merchant Exceptions.
In this article, you’ll learn how to block or allow transactions based on Spending categories.
Spending categories overview
If you would like to block all purchases at merchants in a given spending category, take the following steps:
Option 1 - True Link mobile app
Administrators can allow or block spending categories from the mobile app. Once logged in, tap “Spending Settings.”
- Tap the Spending category grouping (e.g. Top line protections, Commonly blocked, etc.) you’d like to apply settings to or tap “See All 35 Categories” to see all categories
- Tap the toggle to change the setting for a category from “Allowed” to “Blocked or vice versa”
- Specific Merchant Exceptions cannot be managed through the mobile app at this time
Option 2 - Online dashboard
Through your administrator dashboard, go to the “Spending Settings” tab and scroll down to the “Spending categories” section.
- Click the Spending category grouping (e.g. Top line protections, Commonly blocked, etc.) you'd like to apply settings to, or tap "See All 35 Categories" to see all categories.
- Click the toggle to change the setting for a category from "ALLOW" to "BLOCK" or vice versa.
If you would like to block transactions within a given category but still allow cardholders to make purchases at specific merchants within that category, you can use the Merchant Exceptions feature from the online dashboard.
For example, if you want to block purchases made at beauty salons, spas, and barber shops but allow transactions at the specific salon the cardholder visits regularly, you can:
- Block “Beauty” on the list of Spending categories.
- Add the specific salon to the Merchant Exceptions, and select “Always allow.”
You can view additional information about the Spending categories by hovering your cursor over the green circled "i" next to the category.
Additional information
Spending categories are determined by merchant category codes (MCC), a classification assigned by Visa to every business that allows financial institutions to categorize purchases. True Link cannot change the categorization of individual merchants.
Note that Spending Settings are applied at the merchant level, and it is not possible to block specific purchases at a given merchant. For more information, see our article on managing merchandise purchases at a merchant.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Support team.