Understanding Card Declines

Overview

The bank that issues a credit or debit card to a cardholder is referred as the “Issuing Bank”. When a customer makes a purchase using their card, their Issuing Bank sends funds to the merchant’s “Acquiring Bank”, where the funds settle. Since Xendit has optimized configurations with Acquiring Banks to prevent declines from their side, card declines that might be experienced are generally the result of the Issuing Bank declining those transactions.

Issuing banks only share the exact reason for a decline to the cardholder, who has the direct relationship (bank account or cardholder agreement) with them. So the only way to know for sure why a card was declined is to ask the cardholder to contact their issuing bank and ask. They can do this by calling their bank and inquiring about the declined transaction by providing the amount, date / time, and other information to help the bank identify the transaction.

However, since asking customers to call their bank to investigate every decline is not a scaleable or a user-friendly process, we have developed heuristics to determine the most likely reasons for the decline. These heuristics are based on signals in the response from the issuing bank combined with its regional context such as country. The Card Transaction Details page in the Xendit Dashboard has a Decline Insights section which explains the most likely reasons for any decline based on these heuristics.

See below for a description of the different insights that explain why a transaction was most likely declined.

Decline Reasons

Failure ReasonDescriptionRecommendation
AUTHENTICATION FAILEDPayment was declined because transaction is not authenticated yet.Recommend cardholder to to re-authenticate the transaction with 3DS. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card, other form of payment, or contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction.
DECLINED BY ISSUERPayment was declined by the issuer with no additional information provided to Xendit.Recommend cardholder to contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
DECLINED BY PROCESSORPayment was declined by the processor with no additional information provided to Xendit.Recommend cardholder to try again. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
EXPIRED CARDPayment was declined because card has expired.Recommend cardholder to input the correct expiration date. Or recommend cardholder to contact their issuing bank if they are certain that their card should still be active for the payment. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
FRAUD RISK BLOCKEDBlocked by Xendit Fraud Prevention Payment was declined by Xendit risk assessment. Please refer to the Fraud Risk Assessment section for more detail.Review the cardholder, as the payment was blocked by your blocklist. If you believe the cardholder to be legitimate, remove the identifier from the blocklist and ask them to try again. Otherwise, avoid processing transaction from them to prevent chargeback.
INACTIVE OR UNAUTHORIZED CARDPayment was declined by the issuer because card is not authorized for online transactions.Recommend cardholder to contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
INSUFFICIENT BALANCEPayment was declined by the issuer because insufficient funds in the cardholder's account.Recommend cardholder to contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction if they are certain that they have enough balance for the payment. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
INVALID CARDPayment was declined by the issuer because incorrect card information being provided.Recommend cardholder to review the card information and try again. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
INVALID CVVPayment was declined by the issuer because incorrect card CVN / CVV / CSC being provided.Recommend cardholder to review the card CVV / CVN / CSC (3-4 digit code on the back of the card) and try again. Or recommend cardholder to contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction if they are certain that they have input the correct CVV. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
ISSUER SUSPECT FRAUDPayment was declined by the issuer because they suspect this payment to be fraudulent.Review the cardholder. If you believe the cardholder to be legitimate, recommend them to use a different card or other form of payment. Otherwise, avoid processing transactions from them to prevent chargeback.
ISSUER UNAVAILABLEPayment was declined by the processor because the card issuer is unreachable.Recommend cardholder to contact their card issuing bank to resolve the problem on online transaction. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
PROCESSOR ERRORPayment was declined by the processor because of intermittent error on the processor side.Recommend cardholder to try again in a few minutes. Alternatively, they can try to use other form of payment.
PROCESSOR TIMEOUTPayment was declined by the processor because of intermittent error on the processor side.Recommend cardholder to check their balance and make sure no transaction being recorded. In case they’re charged, please contact Xendit to support you in refunding the transaction. Alternatively, they can try to use a different card or other form of payment.
STOLEN CARDPayment was declined by the issuer because the card was reported as stolen / lost by the cardholder.Review the cardholder. If you believe the cardholder to be legitimate, recommend them to use a different card or other form of payment. Otherwise, avoid processing transaction from them to prevent chargeback.

Last Updated on 2023-05-19