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When a Merchant submits a credit card Transaction for validation or purchase, they receive a response code from the payment provider or credit card networks. The response can either show a success, whereby the Transaction can be captured, or a decline. These authorization failure codes (or decline codes) explain the type of Transaction failure, and the relevant resolution and therefore serve as a decision point on whether a Transaction capture can be reattempted. Credit card Transactions are performed with the following two-step process:
  1. Authorization that validates the customer card in real-time with the payment provider and makes sure funds are available to be held for the current purchase.
  2. Payment is captured as an offline batch process, transferring the funds from the cardholder’s bank to the merchant’s bank.
Transactions can fail for many reasons, putting your relationship with your customers on the line. An account could have insufficient funds or reached a credit limit, a credit card could be expired or invalid, and so on. Understanding and correctly interpreting the response that the payment provider returns is crucial for knowing how to retry the Transaction and improving your capture results. When a credit card Transaction is submitted for authorization, one of three types of responses can be returned:
  • Approved – The Transaction was approved, and payment will be captured.
  • Soft Fail (Decline) – A payment capture attempt that failed but may indicate that additional attempts may succeed, such as when the customer has insufficient funds. This type of fail is classified according to the response code returned and follows industry standards and recommendations.
  • Hard Fail (Rejected) – A payment capture attempt that failed and indicated that additional attempts will subsequently fail, such as when the account has been terminated. This type of fail is classified according to the response code returned. Hard fails are not resubmitted for capture (unless the payment method has been updated since the failure occurred).

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Types of Authorization Response Codes

Three types of authorization response codes (or decline codes) can be returned for every Transaction:
  • Payment Provider auth code Response – the response from your specific payment provider integration that includes the reason the Transaction failed.
  • Mastercard Merchant Advice Codes (MAC) and Visa Category Codes – a response issued by the credit card network, which is based on the response code from the card issuing bank and provided by certain payment providers. These provide advice on whether the Transaction can be retried. For more details, see Visa Categories section and Mastercard Merchant Advice Codes section.
  • Network Response Codes – a response from credit card networks, such as Visa and MasterCard, which includes the reason that the Transaction failed, provided by certain payment providers.
Authorization response codes that originate from the credit card issuer (such as MAC, Visa Category codes, and Network Response Codes) supply an additional layer of data about the failure type and help enable smart retries when possible. This deeper insight into failure types can help provide input for an optimized retry strategy. The same Payment Provider auth code can have different Merchant Advice Codes/ Visa Categories code/ Network Response Codes.. For example, a 401 Payment Provider auth code can sometimes return a Do not try again Merchant Advice Code or a Try again later Merchant Advice Code.

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Visa Categories

Visa has allocated its response codes to four different categories to maximize the efficiency of the retry process by defining clear response codes and behaviors. For more information, see Visa’s best practices guide. The following categories, each defining the retry policy, are defined: Category 1: Issuer will never approve Transaction (reattempt not allowed) Category 2: Issuer cannot approve the Transaction at this time (reattempt allowed) Category 3: Data Quality concern (re-validate data prior to reattempt) Category 4: Generic response code (reattempt allowed) In addition, when re-attempt is allowed, there is a limitation of 15 attempts over 30 days.

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Mastercard Merchant Advice Codes

Mastercard Merchant Advice codes are a communication mechanism between the card network and the merchant, based on the issuer response. They provide the reason for a decline and the action a merchant can take to retain their recurring payment customers. The following codes are defined:

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Vindicia Implementation of Authorization Response Codes

Vindicia uses its tried and true industry insights to evaluate the received authorization responses and optimize your capture efforts. Along with Vindicia’s advisers and technical representatives, you can choose which type of authorization code has top priority for the decision whether to retry capturing your Transactions. Together, we can help maximize your revenue recovery, reduce churn, and extend your existing relationship with your customer base. Vindicia currently supports Merchant Advice Codes (MAC) and/or Visa Category Codes for the following payment providers:
  • Adyen
  • Braintree
  • Chase Paymentech
  • CyberSource
  • FDMS Compass
  • Orbital Stratus
  • Paysafe
  • Payway (retryable response code)
  • RocketGate
  • SmartPay
  • WorldPay WPG
  • Worldpay Vantiv Litle
Vindicia currently supports Network Response Codes for the following payment providers:
  • Adyen (Referred to as Refusal Reason Codes)
  • Braintree
  • Chase Paymentech
  • Orbital Stratus
  • Worldpay Vantiv Litle
Vindicia continues to add support for Merchant Advice Codes, Visa Category Codes, and Network Response Codes on an ongoing basis with payment providers that provide them.