Merchant identifiers

[HeimirThor]

Hi,

I'm working on a project where we get merchant data from several different payment processors.

I've been investigating if we could use the Merchant Search API to look up both Merchant category and address information for our merchant data, that often only has a MID.

When using the Sandbox I can see that it returns `visaMerchantId` and `visaStoreId` that are 8 and 9 digits each. The MIDs that I get from our processors are somewhere between 12 and 16 digits, with most of them around 12. So I assume that my MIDs are neither `visaMerchantId` nor `visaStoreId`.

In the API documentation there is mention of several other identifiers, i.e. `acquirerMid` and `acquirerCardAccptorId`, but I have not been able to find any documentation explaining these identifiers. I've tried to submit some of my MIDs to the endpoint using these identifiers and get `No matching records found`, which is of course inconclusive, as I don't expect the Sandbox to contain data on these merchants.

Can someone point me to documentation about the identifiers mentioned above, or if there exists a mapping from different payment processor MIDs to an identifier I can use to query the Merchant Search endpoint.

Thank you,

/Heimir

[API_Products]

Hey @HeimirThor, 

I'm happy to help answer your query. The merchant ID you see in the sandbox for the Merchant Search and Locator API is Visa merchant ID or VMID which is different from the MID that you would see in the transactions.
 
The MIDs in the transactions are not consistent with our approach of identifying merchants at their store locations because technically a store location may have multiple MIDs, so we use the VMID/VSID (Visa Store ID) as the unique identifier in our databases.

[HeimirThor]

Thank you Diana.
Is it possible to do a merchant search using the transaction MID, or is there an endpoint that returns VMID from the transaction MID?
Thanks,
/Heimir

[API_Products]

Hey @HeimirThor,

That's a good question and we're happy to help. We'll get back soon. 

[API_Products · Accepted solution]

Hey @HeimirThor,

Looks like we were communicating with one another using email at developer@visa.com. I'll answer your query in this forum post so that the developers in the community forum can see my response, as well. 

Yes, with Merchant Search APIs, it is possible to do a merchant search using the transaction MID.