What is Dynamic Currency Conversion?
Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC), also referred to as Cardholder Preferred Currency (CPC), is a service
offered by merchants in some countries when you are traveling abroad.
If you choose to use the DCC service, the merchant will convert the purchase price of goods or services at the point of sale from the
currency in which the price (i.e., the merchant's local currency) is displayed into another currency (i.e. your home currency) using
an exchange rate that typically includes a service fee.
Consider a USA Visa cardholder is in Singapore and decides to purchase a box of chocolates priced at Singapore Dollar SGD 20.
At checkout, the merchant offers the cardholder the option to pay in USD (United State of America Dollar) using a DCC service.
The merchant dynamically converts the SGD transaction amount to USD 15.80. The DCC transaction amount and transaction
currency (in USD) are disclosed to the cardholder.
An exchange rate of 0.79 (1 SGD = 0.79 USD), which includes a 2.5% mark up (over a wholesale exchange rate)
and the 2.5% commission/fee/mark up are also disclosed to the cardholder.
The cardholder actively chooses DCC by checking a box on a printed receipt or pushing a button on an electronic screen and agrees
to pay USD 15.80 for the box of chocolates using the exchange rate provided by the merchant that includes a 2.5% fee for
the DCC service.
If you do not want to use DCC when making a purchase, then you have the right to refuse the offer and have your transaction billed in
the merchant's local currency, which will then use Visa's conversion rate.
If you did not agree to DCC, but see it on your bill, then you should ask your issuing bank to contest the charge.
Dynamic currency conversion for ATM gives travelling consumers the option, while being in a foreign country, to have the currency conversion
performed by the acquirer rather than the issuing bank.
As a result of DCC, the acquirer sends the transaction request to the networks for authorization with the transaction amount in the
cardholder currency.
Dynamic Currency Conversion is a service offered by global networks such as Visa and MasterCard.
Dynamic Currency Conversion Benefits
Dynamic Currency Conversion gives the cardholder the benefit of seeing and agreeing to the transaction amount in their home
(cardholder account) currency at the ATM, and locking the exchange rate at that time.
Non-DCC transactions are typically sent to the interchange with the transaction amount in the currency of the acquiring network, making
the card issuer responsible for performing the necessary currency conversion.
If the consumer selects to lock-in the exchange rate, the total transaction amount is converted prior to the transaction being sent to
the issuer for authorization.
The total transaction amount showing on the final consumer statement is the same as what the consumer approved at the terminal, inclusive
of any acquirer surcharge fees.
Dynamic Currency Conversion is supported today by some payment systems such as BASE24 and BASE24-eps.
ATM DCC customers planning their migration from BASE24 to BASE24-eps require DCC to be supported in BASE24-eps as well.
BASE24-eps DCC does provide cardholders with transparent debited amount information, and ATM acquirers with higher conversion profit.
BASE24-eps do fully integrate DCC transaction processing as part of ATM acquirers other online payment processing, allowing them to
streamline front and back office operations.
BASE24-eps do addresses the requirements related to acquiring (request/response interaction with the terminal) ATM transactions for
DCC processing,
While the authorization addresses the capability to route DCC transactions to a partner DCC host for processing and to
respond back to BASE24-eps with the applicable DCC data.
DCC allows acquirers and processors around the globe to offer their customers the ability to identify the currency in which they prefer a
transaction be processed at the time the transaction is initiated.
With a BASE24-eps Dynamic Currency Conversion enhancement, ATM acquirers will achieve benefits through enhanced customer experience and
increased revenues.
The overall goal is for ACI's BASE24-eps to create an integrated "off the shelf" DCC offering to customers for customers
processing ATM transactions.
MasterCard Dynamic Currency Conversion
Requests messages to MasterCard Host Issuer must has set an option Field 48 Subfield 2 (Dynamic Currency Conversion Indicator)
to indicates a transaction for which Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) is performed by the merchant at the point of sale.
If the merchant performs dynamic currency conversion at the point of sale, acquirers must send this value in the Authorization
Request 0100 message.
This value will be mapped to Visa Field 126.19 - Dynamic Currency Conversion Indicator.
The acquirer will need to populate subfield 2 with a 'Space' if DCC was not performed and any other Payment Service Indicator is
submitted in the Authorization Request 0100.
NOTE that the Dynamic Currency Conversion provides the cardholder the option to pay for goods or services in their own billing currency.
DCC occurs when a merchant performs currency conversion locally and submits the transaction in the cardholder's billing currency.
Acquirers must ensure that they receive an indicator from their merchants when DCC is performed for a Visa transaction.
Supported Device Handlers for
Dynamic Currency Conversion
DCC is a financial service in which holders of Visa and MasterCard payments cards have the cost of a transaction converted to their
local currency when making a payment in a foreign currency.
Dynamic Currency Conversion defines the requirements for authorization/routing enhancements required to
interact with the third party DCC providers.
Dynamic Currency Conversion transaction originating from the following ATMs device handlers, should be supported:
- Diebold 912 Device Handler
- NCR NDC+ Device Handler
- Wincor DDC Device Handler
- Wincor NDC Device Handler
Dynamic Currency Conversion will only be offered for Withdrawal and Cash Advance transactions for ATM DCC transactions
A DCC transaction at the ATM can be initiated with both magnetic stripe and EMV cards.
Authorization request from a DCC-enabled device that passes all DCC prescreen criteria and is successfully converted by the DCC Host.
The transaction is sent externally for authorization. DCC is supported in both single and multicurrency environments.
•The acquirer currency code is configured in the Institution record for the acquirer's inst-id.
•The issuer currency code is configured in the Institution record for the issuer's inst-id.
•The logical network currency code is configured as an Environment variable.
•ATM terminal currency is configured on ATM Channel Profile Configuration.
•ATM hopper configuration has the hoppers currency configuration.
•ATM sample consumer media table and sample load group 901 contains multi-currency support for U.S. dollar,
British pound, and Singapore dollar.
When the requested amount currency is the same as the cardholder billing currency, there is no conversion sent back from DCC Host
regardless it's in a single or multi-currency environment.
For example, Dispensed currency is the same as the card holder's billing currency. The terminal currency, acquirer currency, issuer currency,
and logical network currency are the same (U.S. dollar 840).
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Dynamic Currency Conversion gives merchants the ability to offer the overseas travellers pay in their own currency or your international
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Dynamic currency conversion for card payment systems is a user friendly point of purchase service whereby international Visa and
MasterCard card users can choose to pay in their own currency, rather than the local currency.