What is the Mastercard equivalent of RDR and CDRN?

Ethoca Alerts, owned by Mastercard since 2019. Participating issuers send near real-time fraud and dispute alerts, and the merchant can stop fulfillment, cancel a shipment or refund before a chargeback is filed. NORBr Pre-chargeback Alerts handles Verifi and Ethoca alerts together.

How Ethoca works

Participating issuers send fraud alerts, when a cardholder reports a transaction as unauthorized, and dispute alerts, when a cardholder contacts the bank about a purchase. The merchant reviews the alert, then stops fulfillment, cancels the shipment or issues a refund, and reports the outcome. Mastercard acquired Ethoca in March 2019.

Closer to CDRN than to RDR

Like CDRN, an Ethoca alert waits for a human decision. There is no rule engine refunding claims automatically, as RDR does for Visa.

The matching challenge

Ethoca sends the real card number, while merchants often hold only tokens. Mastercard’s own guidance recommends matching on the acquirer reference number and date first, with a two-day date window and a 5% amount tolerance after currency conversion.

What it means for payment operators

Merchants rarely want one tool per network. Receiving Verifi and Ethoca alerts in the same place, matched to their transactions, is what lets a team work one queue instead of two.