Dean M. Leavitt, Founder and CEO, Boost Payment Solutions
For years, commercial card payments have carried a familiar promise for B2B: greater efficiency, better controls and faster settlement. But in practice, too much of the process has still relied on legacy technology, inconsistent data quality, and post-settlement clean-up. That’s changing, fast.
Visa’s Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) marks one of the most significant shifts in B2B payments in decades, not because it introduces a new “program,” but because it fundamentally redefines what qualifies as a high-integrity commercial card transaction. Under CEDP, the industry is moving from “best effort” enhanced data submission to real-time, automated validation where accuracy and completeness determine interchange outcomes and long-term acceptance economics.
Recommended: Using AI To Fight Fraud, Cut Cost, and Fuel Company Growth
The first interchange changes tied to CEDP went into effect in October 2024, marking the start of Visa’s transition toward a more data-driven qualification model and the replacement of legacy Level 3 interchange structures. While Level 2 data classifications remain part of the commercial card ecosystem for now, Visa has signaled a phased move away from relying on those frameworks as the primary path to optimal commercial card economics, with Level 2 expected to begin phasing out in April 2026. Under CEDP, achieving the most favorable outcomes increasingly depends on transaction-level validation driven by data accuracy, transparency, and continuity rather than category-based qualification alone. In short: data isn’t nice-to-have anymore. It’s imperative.
Historically, Level 2 and Level 3 data requirements operated like a framework that encouraged richer remittance and line-item detail, but enforcement was uneven and qualification often felt like a compliance exercise. Many participants treated enhanced data as something to “try to pass,” rather than something to engineer into the transaction lifecycle.
CEDP changes that dynamic
With enhanced data specifications replacing legacy interchange structures, Visa’s approach becomes more explicit: every transaction is judged based on the quality of the data provided and whether that data persists accurately through the payment chain. The result is a clearer separation between transactions that are truly commercial-grade and those that are functionally incomplete. This is the turning point: commercial payments are becoming data-first by design.
Recommended: How AI is Transforming the Insurance Claims Experience
CEDP is sometimes framed as an “interchange update,” but its impact is much broader. Visa is effectively setting a new expectation for how commercial payment data should be captured, structured, transmitted, and validated.
That shift affects everyone:
- Suppliers and merchants now face direct cost consequences when data is incomplete, inconsistent, or dropped. This creates uncertainty and delayed economics tied to verification status.
- Acquirers and processors must ensure enhanced data isn’t just collected but formatted correctly and delivered consistently into Visa’s system without degradation.
- Fintechs, ERP platforms, and AP/AR providers must treat data orchestration as core infrastructure, not a “feature,” because validation happens at the network level.
- Buyers and issuers will see the downstream effect of acceptance economics: if suppliers experience higher costs or unpredictable reimbursements, they will reduce card acceptance, and that translates to lost commercial volume.
CEDP is not a localized operational change. It’s an ecosystem evolution.
The real challenge: data continuity, not data capture
Most organizations can capture invoice details. The bigger issue is whether those details survive the journey.
CEDP introduces a reality that many in B2B payments have known for years: even when a supplier has the right data, it can still fail qualification if it’s not formatted properly, incomplete or dropped by an intermediary system.
That means the new competitive advantage isn’t “who can generate the data,” but who can guarantee data integrity end-to-end—from the supplier’s billing system, through processors and acquirers, and into Visa’s validation layer.
This is where partnerships and payment infrastructure matter. Winners will be the organizations that can:
- automate enhanced data normalization,
- validate data before submission,
- and reduce qualification uncertainty at the point of transaction.
- Verification changes the economics—and the experience
Under the new framework, suppliers may initially process transactions at higher commercial rates and receive retroactive adjustments only after post-settlement validation, creating a reimbursement lag that can stretch from weeks to months depending on reconciliation and verification timelines.
For suppliers, that’s not just an accounting nuance. It’s a cash flow and margin planning issue, and it can quickly become a reason to question whether commercial card acceptance is worth it.
As the network prioritizes verified, high-quality transaction histories, the market will reward platforms that help suppliers achieve qualified outcomes immediately—not eventually.
CEDP is a blueprint for the future of B2B payments
The bigger story here isn’t CEDP itself, it’s what CEDP represents.
Visa is signaling that commercial payments will increasingly be evaluated the way modern digital systems evaluate everything: by measurable integrity, automated validation, and structured data. That direction aligns with broader trends in B2B commerce: digitized reconciliation, real-time reporting, fraud prevention through better metadata and AI-driven financial operations that depend on clean inputs.
Recommended: How Asset Management Leaders Can Embrace AI
CEDP is a step toward a world where commercial card payments aren’t simply “card rails,” but data-enriched transactions built for automation.
What businesses should do now
If you participate in commercial card payments, directly or indirectly, CEDP requires action. The organizations that navigate this transition successfully will focus on three priorities:
- Audit your data reality, not your assumptions. Identify where enhanced data is captured, where it’s transformed and where it’s lost.
- Strengthen the chain. Enhanced data must be consistent across suppliers, gateways, processors, and acquirers. A single weak link can turn qualified data into unqualified outcomes.
- Choose infrastructure built for validation. The new baseline is not “can we send Level 3,” but “can we reliably deliver verified-quality enhanced data at scale.”
CEDP isn’t just a change in Visa’s rules. It’s a change in how the industry defines commercial payments.
And the message is clear: in this new era of B2B, payment performance will be determined by data performance.
To participate in our interviews and Guest Posts, please write to us at info@intentamplify.com