How to increase payment approval rates

Every declined deposit is a player you already acquired and lost at checkout. Here is where to look to win them back.

Measure before acting

Approval rate should be read by market, scheme, card type, amount and provider. An average hides the weak spots: often a single issuer or a single amount range explains most declines.

Understand response codes

Generic declines, insufficient funds, suspected fraud and technical errors call for different actions. Grouping response codes separates recoverable declines from final ones.

Routing and multiple providers

Routing each transaction to the provider most likely to succeed, with a second provider as a fallback, reduces dependence on a single partner and recovers a share of declines.

Authentication and retries

A calibrated use of 3-D Secure and retries guided by the decline reason improves results without raising fraud. Chargebacks must be monitored as well.

An audit of the payment data of one or two markets is usually enough to identify the first three actions with the greatest effect.