Your Visa® Prepaid Card has access to the Spending Settings, which gives the administrator the ability to customize where the Card can be used to make purchases. The Spending Settings can be configured to meet specific cardholder needs, and settings can be updated at any time.
In this article, you’ll learn how Spending Settings work and the ways to update them.
Spending Settings overview
For some cards, the Spending Settings include five primary categories of settings:
- Temporary overrides: Override all Card settings to block or allow all purchases for a period of time; easily revert to the previous settings when needed.
- Spending limits: Set a maximum dollar amount for a single transaction, and set a maximum cash withdrawal dollar amount per cash withdrawal.
- Merchant Exception: Block or allow purchases at specific merchants. Merchant exceptions are a great way to customize settings based on cardholder needs, down to the level of an individual merchant location. You can also set maximum spending limits per transaction at specific merchants.
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Spending categories: Prevent purchases at certain categories of merchants as classified by Visa, including:
- Top-line protections: Block online and phone purchases, international transactions, or purchases at merchants on our ScamWatch list. The ScamWatch list includes merchants whose behavior has been flagged as potentially fraudulent by multiple users.
- Commonly blocked: E.g., Block all purchases at merchants categorized as gambling and casinos, bars & liquor stores, dating services, smoke shops, subscriptions, and money transfers.
- Other spending categories: Select whether to allow or block purchases across 35 spending categories like restaurants, gas stations, travel, and charitable donations.
Please be aware that your Card blocks and allows purchases at the merchant level. This means that if a merchant is allowed, the cardholder may purchase anything from that store, as you cannot block specific items from being purchased at a given merchant. For example, it is not possible to block the purchase of gift cards because gift cards are a retail item purchased from a merchant.
Update settings
To update any setting, click the toggle to the right of the setting to the red “BLOCK” button or the green “ALLOW” button. Settings save automatically, can be updated at any time, and take effect immediately.
Please see our articles on Spending Settings linked in the bullets above for more information on the settings listed.