DCC – Consumer/Cardholder Choice Rules

On this page:

• Principles
• Consumer and cardholder Choice
• What needs to be shown to a consumer before they make a choice?
• Cardholder disclosure information
• Additional requirements for EEC curency conversion
• Final Card Holder Display Screen Examples

Principles

The fundamental principles of DCC regulations are that:

• All terms and conditions associated with DCC are disclosed to the consumer in full.
• The consumer is given the choice to either accept or to decline the DCC service.

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Consumer And Cardholder Choice

To ensure consumer/cardholder choice, the following regulations on how the DCC service is offered must be followed:

1. The default transaction currency must be the customer’s pricing currency.
2. The customer must inform the consumer that the DCC service is optional before the consumer opts-in to the DCC service.
3. The customer must not use any language or procedures that may make it difficult for the consumer to pay using the customer’s currency.
4. The customer must not use any language or procedures that cause the consumer to choose DCC by default.
   
   1. A consumer must not feel required, encouraged, or steered to use the POI currency conversion by any manner.
   2. For example, a POS Terminal must not ask or require a consumer to choose to have the Transaction completed in a particular currency, whether by selecting “YES” or “NO” or by influencing a currency selection with colours such as red and green, or otherwise.
5. The customer must not make incorrect claims about the DCC service or claims that cannot be substantiated.
6. The customer must honour the consumer’s choice.

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What needs to be shown to a consumer before they make a choice?

In summary, to be compliant the cardholder must have the following presented to them:

• A clear question or instruction, e.g. “Select Currency”.
• Local Amount and Currency.
• DCC Amount and Currency.
• Exchange Rate shown as a ratio e.g. 1 EURO = 1.123456 USD.
• Mark-up percentage or Mark-up percentage over the European Central Bank (ECB) rate.
• An ethical and clear method for the cardholder to select or reject DCC.

All Cardholder Disclosure information must be made available to the consumer when:

• They are being offered DCC.
• Before making their choice.
• Before completing the Authorisation or pre-Authorisation processes.

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Cardholder Disclosure Information

Minimum DCC Information Requirements

The following are the minimum DCC information requirements for display on a screen:

1. Transaction amount in the customer’s local Pricing Currency displayed using the correct currency symbol or ISO code (e.g. € or EUR).
2. Transaction amount in the cardholder’s Billing Currency displayed using the correct currency symbol or ISO code (e.g. € or EUR).
3. The Exchange Rate used to convert the Transaction Amount from the customer's Pricing Currency to the cardholder’s Billing Currency.

Recommended DCC Information

When possible and in addition to the minimum DCC information display requirements, the following information should also be displayed:

1. The Mark-up applied to the Reference Exchange Rate when calculating the Exchange Rate used to convert from the customer’s Pricing Currency to the cardholder’s Billing Currency. Important: EU Legislation states that:
   
   1. When both the card is issued and the merchant is based in the European Economic Area (EEA), then the mark-up is the percentage over the European Central Bank (ECB) rate.
   2. DCC transactions that fail to meet either of these criteria are considered non-EEA and existing mark-up rules apply in relation to screens and receipts.
2. For MasterCard® DCC Transactions using an unattended POS Terminal, the POS device or the printed Quote Receipt must clearly disclose the following statement verbatim to the Cardholder:
   
   1. "MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE COSTS OF CURRENCY CONVERSION AS THEY MAY BE DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON WHETHER YOU SELECT YOUR HOME CURRENCY OR THE TRANSACTION CURRENCY.”

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Additional requirements for European Economic Area (EEA) currency conversion

The EU requested additional transparency requirements to be introduced on charges for currency conversion.

When complying with the EU rules, consumers will be informed of applicable charges before making their DCC choice. This introduces an obligation to disclose the charges applied as a percentage mark-up of all currency conversion charges over the latest available exchange rate of the ECB.

Elavon supports the additional mark-up percentage above ECB in the online inquiry response message. Go to the list of Supported EEA Countries.

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Final Card Holder Display Screen Examples

1. When a terminal supports colour

For touch-screen terminals we recommend that the DCC selection is made by tapping an interaction decorated with the currency’s flag. Adding a familiar flag optimises DCC uptake rates.

2. When a terminal is not touch-screen

When a selection is made by pressing a button next to the display, then the DCC options must be positioned to enable their accurate selection using the corresponding button.

3. When a terminal is not touch screen and is without contextual selection buttons

When selections must be made using the device’s numeric key pad, then Elavon recommends that:

• Pressing button 1 declines DCC.
• Pressing button 2 accepts DCC.

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❮ DCC Calculations Next: DCC Receipt Requirements ❯