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There is no universal rule that fixes every card-payment exchange rate at authorization—or recalculates every rate at capture. The answer depends on which conversion you mean: a shopper-facing dynamic currency conversion (DCC) quote, the card network or issuer’s conversion into the cardholder’s billing currency, or a payment provider’s conversion into the merchant’s settlement currency. Those are separate FX legs, and their rates can have different owners and timing rules.
First identify which exchange rate changed
Authorization is the stage when a card transaction is approved, usually for a specified amount and currency. Capture is the merchant’s instruction to collect all or part of that authorized amount. Clearing and settlement follow as transaction and payment records are processed. A rate associated with one leg or event does not automatically govern the others.
| Conversion leg | What is being converted | Who or what may set the rate | What determines its timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| DCC | The purchase amount in the merchant’s currency into the cardholder’s billing currency, offered at checkout | A DCC provider or payment arrangement | The displayed quote and the provider’s rules for authorization, completion, and capture |
| Network or issuer conversion | The transaction currency into the cardholder’s billing currency | The network and/or issuer, subject to applicable rules and law | Network policy and the issuer’s applicable conversion and fee rules |
| Merchant settlement FX | The provider’s processing or presentment currency into the merchant’s holding or payout currency | The payment provider or other contracted FX service | The provider’s contract, rate identifier, rate period, and transaction timing |
So a cardholder’s final billing amount and a merchant’s net settlement amount can reflect different conversions. A question such as “Was the rate locked?” cannot be answered reliably until the currency pair and the party doing the conversion are identified.
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DCC: a shopper-facing quote with provider-specific capture rules
DCC is an optional offer to pay in the cardholder’s billing currency rather than the merchant’s local currency. The shopper should see the converted amount and rate before choosing. In JPMorgan’s in-store documentation, a real-time quote is supplied by Fexco; qualifying incremental authorization or completion transactions use the currently available conversion rate. That is a documented flow, not a rule for every DCC provider. JPMorgan’s DCC documentation describes its operation.
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Visa Acceptance Solutions gives a different, explicit instruction for its documented DCC capture flow: apply the authorization rate at capture, and do not capture more than the originally authorized amount. Its implementation guidance includes exchange-rate and rate-timestamp fields for relevant integrations. This is a specific integration requirement; it does not establish that all card FX is locked at authorization. See the Visa Currency Conversion Implementation Guide.
For a merchant producing its own DCC receipt, Adyen says to include the exchange rate, its source, the markup, amounts in both shopper and local currencies, and a statement that the shopper accepted DCC. If authorization is adjusted, Adyen advises configuring capture webhooks and adding capture details to the receipt or invoice. These records can help show what was quoted and what was captured. See Adyen’s DCC guidance.
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Network or issuer conversion: Visa’s policy is not every provider’s contract
Visa announced that, effective April 2021, it would assess the same exchange rate across authorization, clearing, and settlement for the majority of cross-currency transactions across VisaNet. That statement concerns Visa network conversion; it does not determine separate merchant settlement FX or the terms of every issuer, acquirer, and payment-provider service. Visa’s announcement explains the policy’s stated scope.
Visa’s rules define its Currency Conversion Rate using wholesale currency-market rates available for the transaction or a government-mandated rate. They also distinguish rates set by an issuer for its cardholder from rates set by an acquirer for its merchant, subject to applicable rules and law. An issuer may also apply an optional fee to the cardholder’s conversion. That distinction matters: a network conversion policy does not by itself specify every amount a merchant receives. See the Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules.
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A displayed rate lookup is not necessarily the rate applied to a particular transaction. Visa describes the daily rates in its FX API as indicative and says they may differ from actual transaction settlement rates. Do not use an API lookup alone to prove which rate appeared on a card statement or in a merchant’s settlement. See the Visa Foreign Exchange Rates API reference.
Merchant settlement FX: capture time can matter under the contract
PayPal’s Foreign Exchange as a Service agreement illustrates a contract in which merchant settlement may depend on a rate period and an FX ID. Under the described terms, transactions authorized and captured within the applicable rate period, with the corresponding FX ID submitted, settle at that period’s rate. The agreement also defines a two-hour cutoff mechanism for certain transactions after a rate period ends. For transactions outside the applicable period or cutoff, or when no FX ID is submitted, it says settlement uses the rate in effect at capture; the merchant is responsible for supplying the FX ID. The agreement also puts the risk on the merchant if its customer-facing price uses a different rate from the provider’s settlement rate. These are PayPal service-contract terms, not a universal card-network rule. Read the PayPal FX as a Service agreement for the applicable terms.
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This is one way a mismatch can occur: the authorization happens while one rate period or commercial expectation applies, but the settlement conversion depends on capture timing or an identifier submitted with the transaction. Whether that happened in a specific case depends on the provider’s agreement and the transaction record.
Why the final amount may differ from the amount approved
A difference does not, by itself, show that a rate was changed between authorization and capture. First determine which amount is being compared: the authorized transaction amount, the captured amount, the cardholder’s billing-currency charge, or the merchant’s settlement amount. Then check whether the conversion leg uses an authorization quote, a network policy, a rate-period identifier, or a capture-time rate.
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- The transaction amount or currency changed. A partial capture, adjustment, or completion may not match the original authorization; compare both amounts and currencies.
- The conversion legs were confused. A shopper-facing DCC quote and a merchant’s later payout conversion are not the same rate.
- A provider’s rate-period conditions were not met. Under the cited PayPal agreement, timing and submission of the corresponding FX ID affect which settlement rate applies.
- A displayed lookup was treated as a guaranteed transaction rate. Visa says its API rates are indicative and may differ from actual settlement.
- Fees or markup were included in one figure but not another. For DCC, the receipt should identify the rate, source, markup, and both currency amounts.
How to investigate a specific transaction
- Name the conversion leg. Mark the issue as DCC, network/cardholder billing conversion, or merchant settlement FX rather than writing only “FX rate.”
- Collect the transaction evidence. Preserve the quote or FX ID, currency pair, quote timestamp, rate-period identifier, markup or fee fields, and the provider’s rate source.
- Build the event timeline. Record authorization, any incremental authorization or adjustment, capture, and settlement timestamps separately.
- Reconcile amounts and currencies. Compare the authorized and captured amounts with the cardholder billing amount and merchant settlement amount; do not compare figures from different conversion legs as if they were interchangeable.
- Match capture and settlement records. Check capture webhooks and settlement reports against receipts or invoices. For DCC, retain the evidence of the shopper’s choice and the shown rate details.
- Check the governing terms. Review the specific provider agreement for rate expiry, cutoff windows, missing identifiers, partial captures, late captures, refunds, and chargebacks. Do not infer those rules from a network’s general FX policy.
What a merchant or product team should log
Make the conversion leg and its rate reference explicit in transaction logs. A useful record can include the currencies and amounts at each stage, rate source, quote or FX ID, rate timestamp or period, markup and fees, and separate authorization, capture, and settlement timestamps. Keep receipt data, capture-webhook payloads, and settlement reports available for reconciliation. These details make it possible to distinguish a rate-period issue from a changed amount, a DCC capture rule, or a difference between cardholder billing and merchant settlement.
For cardholders considering DCC, Visa says the shopper should be able to accept or decline and that the provider should not choose on the shopper’s behalf. Visa advises declining if key details are missing or the shopper feels pressured. See Visa’s DCC guidance for cardholders.
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