European financial technology provider payabl. has expanded its relationship with Visa to extend access to real-time dispute management tools for merchants across the UK and EU.

Through the collaboration, payabl. will offer Visa’s Rapid Dispute Resolution (RDR) services, enabling merchants to resolve disputes automatically at the pre-dispute stage and help prevent costly chargebacks before they happen. The solution also helps enhance the customer experience by enabling merchants to issue refunds virtually. Pre-dispute tools such as RDR operate upstream of the formal chargeback process: when a cardholder inquiry matches a merchant’s pre-set rules, a refund can be issued automatically, sparing merchants the fees and manual representment work that follow once a dispute becomes a chargeback.

The move strengthens payabl.’s commitment to providing greater control and visibility across the entire payments lifecycle. By integrating Visa’s post-purchase capabilities directly into payabl.one, merchants can manage disputes and oversee RDR activity from the same all-in-one platform they use to handle online and in-person payments, multi-currency business accounts, and payouts.

“In payments, every second counts. Our collaboration with Visa brings merchants faster resolution, fewer chargebacks, and a better experience for their customers,” said Oleg Stefanets, Chief Risk Officer at payabl. “By embedding pre-dispute automation into payabl.one, we’re reducing friction where it matters most: after the sale. Alongside our fraud monitoring capabilities, this helps merchants reduce dispute ratios. It’s another step in our mission to make money flow, giving businesses clarity and control across every transaction.”

“Proactively managing disputes is critical to reducing their impact on merchants’ businesses,” said Dan Parsons, Head of Acceptance Sales, Visa Europe. “Together with payabl., we’re enabling European merchants to automatically address their disputes earlier in a way that minimises disruption and helps build the trust needed to support their long-term growth.”

Visa’s Rapid Dispute Resolution enables merchants to auto-decision pre-disputes in real time, helping lower dispute ratios, improve operational efficiency, and preserve customer trust. The collaboration aligns with payabl.’s strategic focus on building an intuitive control layer for merchants, combining expertise, transparency, reliability, and control across all stages of the payment flow.

The growing impact of disputes

payabl.’s recent Fraud report found chargebacks to now be one of the most common types of fraud impacting businesses over the last year. Overall, 31% of UK-based merchants surveyed said they had been targeted by friendly fraud, while 71% believe that current chargeback rules favour customers and cost businesses money.

These findings are reflected in broader trends across the payments landscape, with first-party misuse (FPM), or friendly fraud, remaining a top and evolving threat. According to Visa’s 2026 Global ecommerce Payments & Fraud Report, nearly two-thirds of merchants (64%) reported an increase in FPM over the past year, with one in four citing increases of 25% or more. The operational burden also continues to grow, with the average cost to resolve a single FPM dispute now exceeding $80, rising for the third consecutive year. The trend coincides with a broader industry push to automate the post-purchase layer: Visa offers RDR through its Verifi business, while Mastercard’s Ethoca provides comparable dispute alert and resolution services, and payment providers increasingly embed such tooling directly in their platforms.

At the same time, merchants are under increasing pressure to manage disputes more efficiently. Cost minimisation has rapidly climbed the agenda, with 29% of merchants now citing it as their top fraud management priority, while many expect spending on fraud tools and resources to stay flat or decline. Dispute volumes also carry scheme-level consequences: Visa operates dispute monitoring programmes that can impose fees and heightened oversight on merchants whose dispute ratios exceed defined limits — the “scheme thresholds” Stefanets references.

“Fraud is no longer just something merchants deal with at checkout; it’s increasingly happening after the sale,” Stefanets added. “What we’re seeing is a shift from prevention to management, where teams are spending significant time handling disputes, chargebacks, and claims. By automating decisions earlier in the lifecycle, merchants can reduce dispute volumes, stay within scheme thresholds, and take back control of how money flows.”