Visa rolls out ‘credit card dispute’ AI tools for banks and merchants

Visa has introduced six artificial intelligence tools to streamline credit card dispute handling, as dispute volumes continue to rise and increase costs for banks and merchants.

The company said it processed more than 106 million disputes globally in 2025, a 35% increase since 2019. Fraud claims or customers not recognising transactions often trigger disputes, and teams typically handle them through manual, time-consuming processes.

Visa has divided the six new tools across the payments ecosystem, assigning three to merchants and three to issuers and acquirers, to reduce manual work, prevent disputes earlier, and improve decision-making through automation and data insights.

Tools for merchants and financial institutions: For merchants, Visa is rolling out systems to intercept disputes before they escalate, automate responses using generative AI, and provide clearer transaction details to reduce confusion over charges. An update to its Order Insight product will also allow merchants to submit additional evidence to banks in suspected fraud cases.

For issuers and acquirers, the tools focus on predictive AI for case analysis, automated document review, and a unified platform to manage disputes across card networks. Some features are already live, while others are expected later in 2026.

Andrew Torre, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, said the current system relies heavily on manual processes. “Some of the challenges are these back-office systems are still largely manual,” he said. “We really had to think differently about how we approach this at scale.”

He added that the company wants to reduce dispute growth. “We’d love to be able to see that growth rate come down.”

Wider AI push and emerging concerns: The move comes as financial institutions increasingly deploy AI to automate internal operations. In India, Razorpay recently launched AI tools to automate similar payment workflows, including dispute handling and recovery of failed transactions. These systems aim to reduce manual work but have also raised concerns about accuracy, potential misuse, and consumer protection risks such as AI-driven manipulation or pricing differences.

Industry experts say the shift reflects a broader structural issue. Sam Abadir, research director at IDC Financial Insights, has warned that institutions relying on fragmented workflows risk losing recoverable revenue while continuing to absorb avoidable costs.

Some of Visa’s tools are already available, while others will roll out through 2026, including a unified dispute management platform planned for North America.