Are your Card Authorization Rates Dropping Faster than an Olympic Sprinter can Run?

If you’re a medium to high-risk merchant in the subscription card-not-present (CNP) arena, you know that authorization rates are not what they used to be.

Getting that charge to stick is getting harder and harder all the time.  

While there are several areas merchants could focus (e.g., examination of payloads, decline salvage services), the logical place to start is with an examination of your current response data to mine for opportunities to improve settlement rates and/or reduce expense. 

Here are two key areas to look to get some fast wins:

1. Deep Dive on Response Reason Codes – response reason codes are useful, but you can’t always take them at face value. The information imparted by the codes can help you determine potential next steps regarding your re-authorization strategy.
   • Make sure you’re taking full advantage of your rights to re-attempt a charge for a specific reason code.   
   • Look out for reason codes that don’t make sense for your business model. For example, a MOTO merchant receives a 3DS response. This could be a symptom of a larger set-up issue at your processing venue.
   • Review your lost/stolen and invalid PAN response codes. Abnormally high rates could mean that your account updater service is not doing its job or you might have a bad apple within your affiliate base.
2. Review Merchant Advice Codes (MACs) – MACs are a relatively recent addition to the authorization scheme. If you don’t know about MACs, here is a link that you might find useful. MAC codes can be harder to analyze as they’re usually paired with a standard decline reason code.  Reviewing them in isolation can cause issues with your re-authorization strategy.  For example, when a response code that you’ve historically treated as a soft decline also contains a MAC that clearly states “Do Not Retry”.  If you’re not looking at MACs, you are most likely wasting money on reattempting authorizations that will never settle. 

Maximizing authorization rates can seem overwhelming, especially if you don’t have the right tools for the job. 

Slyce360 is the Swiss Army Knife of reporting and analytics for your subscription CNP business.   

August 27, 2024