Who wins CEDP? Those with access to the cleanest data

Visa’s Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) is more than a new rulebook for commercial card processing. It marks a dividing line. The economics of acceptance have shifted. What you know about the transaction now determines what you pay to process it.

Rolling out through 2025 and fully enforced by April 2026, CEDP replaces the existing patchwork of Level 2 and Level 3 data programs with a single accuracy framework. Every Visa commercial transaction will now be checked automatically for completeness and accuracy before it qualifies for superior rates. It is a decisive move toward a data-driven payments economy and a stress test for the infrastructure behind it.

CEDP should be viewed as a defining milestone in commercial payments. Not a disruption, but a confirmation of the standards that have been maturing for years. Platforms built for precise, complete data will thrive in this new model.

From optional detail to a competitive asset

For years, enhanced-data programs rewarded merchants who sent Visa richer transaction details, but they rarely verified the accuracy of those submissions. Many acquirers treated Level 3 fields as optional. Placeholders and generic descriptions still earned discounted interchange.

CEDP ends that era of approximation. Verified merchants, whose data passes Visa’s accuracy checks, will access Product 3 rates between roughly 1.75 and 2.05 percent. Non-verified merchants, whose records contain gaps or errors, will remain closer to 2.65 to 2.95 percent. A 0.05 percent participation fee applies to every enhanced-data transaction. A small cost compared to falling short of the new standard.

The industry’s maturity moment

CEDP does not just enforce accuracy. It exposes who has already built for it. For providers that have spent years structuring their systems around clean, complete transaction data, CEDP is business as usual. Others are now racing to patch systems that were never designed for commercial complexity.

The real complexity in B2B payments has never been the transaction itself. It is the data that defines it.

A new economics of accuracy

The old interchange structure treated data as decoration. CEDP turns it into currency. Every transaction must now carry the full DNA of the sale. Products and quantities, taxes and exemptions, freight and duty all need to be expressed in standard formats. Systems that once treated reconciliation as a back-office task are now on the front line of cost control.

From October 2025, Visa’s automated accuracy checks will determine in real time whether a transaction qualifies for the best rate. By April 2026, when the old Level 2 program sunsets, there will be no middle ground.

Winners and losers

CEDP is creating a split market. Providers that already operate with clean, complete data at the source e.g. inside ERP, invoicing, and workflow systems, are the big winners in this new framework as they will qualify for the best rates automatically. They have been capturing the transaction truth from the start, so this is not a transition. It is a tailwind.

Everyone else is now trying to reconstruct accuracy after the fact. Mapping fields, plugging gaps, and hoping their data passes checks. Those reactive systems were not built for commercial complexity. The cost of retrofitting them will be high. Visa’s deadlines are not just policy milestones for these providers. They are survival tests.

The winners are the ones with the cleanest data. The losers are the ones still trying to clean it up in real time.

Beyond compliance

By attaching price signals to data quality, Visa has effectively monetized integrity. Merchants that maintain complete, accurate transaction data will not only pay less to accept payments. They will also gain cleaner analytics, faster reconciliation, and more financial control.

In the new B2B payments economy, data quality is not compliance. It is competitiveness.