Ethoca alerts

Ethoca, a Mastercard solution provides early resolution services through direct merchant network connectivity. The platform facilitates communication between issuers and merchants for chargeback prevention and early resolution through collaborative dispute management.

The alerts component enables issuers to transmit dispute information directly to merchants within the Ethoca network. When an alert is generated, merchants receive notifications and have a 72-hour response window to indicate willingness to provide refunds. The dispute Case automatically closes upon refund confirmation; if no refund is provided, customers retain the option to proceed with the standard chargeback process.

The key functional features of Ethoca alerts resolution include: 

• Configuration for customers to enable sending pending transactions to Ethoca. 
   
• Parallel execution of flows: One flow waits for pending transactions to post, while another processes Ethoca alert resolution.
   
• Merging of flows after Ethoca alert resolution is complete.
   
• In Not Settled scenarios, resolve the case without waiting for the transaction to post.
   
• Skip third-party resolution if it has already been executed.
   
• In refund scenarios, resolve the case based on the refund status.
   
• In partial refund scenarios, configuration for banks to enable contacting cardholders to determine the resolution path for the remaining amount. 

Ethoca alerts resolution follows a flow to resolve the disputes.

• When Ethoca alerts services are enabled by issuers in the SDAA configurations, the system invokes the API to create a case at Ethoca after the customer interview in SDAA. 
   
• Ethoca alerts services respond with a Batch ID as an acknowledgement to the request sent to it and then creates Alert ID for the actual case submission.
   
• SDAA periodically checks the Ethoca alerts system for Alert ID. The default configuration for checking Alert ID is 5 minutes.
   
• The system tries for 24 hours to fetch the Alert ID. If the Alert ID is not generated for 24 hours, the system proceeds with the standard chargeback process.
   
• If Alert ID is generated the system again periodically checks for outcome from Ethoca Alerts. The default configuration to check for outcome is every 4 hours. 
   
• The system tries for 72 hours from case creation for an outcome and if the outcome is not generated, the system proceeds with standard chargeback process.
   
• When there is an outcome and the refund status from Ethoca, the system acts based on refund status. The below table details the system actions for the corresponding refund status.

SDAA provides configuration options for issuers to include both pending and posted transactions in the Ethoca alert resolution process: 

Send pending transactions to Ethoca: When enabled, issuers can submit disputes on transactions that are still pending authorization. This allows engagement with merchants before the transaction is posted. 

The following figure shows the Send pending transactions to Ethoca configuration in Visa Ethoca alert resolution Configuration Set in App Studio: 

Require card holder confirmation: When enabled, case will land onto another screen i.e., cardholder confirmation screen where issuer asks how cardholder wants to proceed further i.e., resolve as cardholder liable or proceed with submitting the chargeback. 

The following figure shows the Request cardholder confirmation for partial refund configuration in Visa Ethoca alert resolution Configuration Set in App Studio: