Visa® Transaction Life CycleThe following illustrations show the life cycle for Visa® card transactions, for both card-present and card-not-present purchases, Processing events and activities may vary slightly for any one merchant, merchant bank, or Issuer, depending on card and transaction types, and the card processing system used.

Visa® Authorization Process:

1. Cardholder presents a Visa® card to pay for purchases. For card-not-present transactions, the cardholder provides the merchant with the account number, expiration date, billing address and CVV2.
   
   
2. Merchant swipes the card, enters the dollar amount, and transmits an authorization request to the merchant bank. For card-not-present transaction, the account number and other information may be digitally or key-entered.
   
   
3. Merchant Bank electronically send the authorization request to Visa®Net.
   
   
4. Visa®Net passes on the request to the issuer.
   
   
5. Issuer approves or declines the transaction.
   
   
6. Visa®Net forwards the issuer's authorization response to the merchant bank
   
   
7. Merchant Bank forwards the response to the merchant.
   
   
8. Merchant receives the authorization response and completes the transaction accordingly.