Visa Inc., the world’s largest payments processor, said on Saturday it would implement a new merchant category code for US gun retailers to identify transactions at firearms stores.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on Friday approved the creation of the Merchant Code, following pressure from gun control activists who say it will help track purchases of suspicious weapons.
Visa said in a statement, “Following ISO’s decision to establish a new merchant category code, Visa will move forward with the next steps, while ensuring that we are able to comply with our long-standing rules for everyone on the Visa network.” protect legal commerce.”
Mastercard Inc. said on Friday that following the ISO’s approval, “we now shift our focus to how it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we work across our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.” We continue to support legitimate purchases.”
The American Express company said that when ISO develops a new code, the company will work with third-party processors and partners on implementation.
The code will show where a person spends money but not what items were purchased.
Several top US pension funds, including government employees in New York City and California, submitted shareholder proposals, calling on payments companies to look into the issue.
Some gun-rights activists have worried that the new code could lead to unauthorized surveillance.
This year’s mass shooting, which killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas, has added to the long-running US debate over gun control.
US President Joe Biden has called for Congress to ban assault weapons, as well as $13 billion to hire and train an additional 100,000 police officers over the next five years, with $37 billion for crime prevention programs.