Upcoming changes to refusal reason handling on card payment methods as of August 14, 2024

Adyen will be modifying how raw acquirer responses are mapped to Adyen refusal reasons and result codes. The mappings will be done using the existing refusal reasons and result codes, and no new refusal reasons or result codes will be introduced. These changes will impact all card payment methods and are rolled out depending on the payment method between August 14, 2024 and October 9, 2024.

What are raw acquirer responses, refusal reasons, and result codes?

These three data points are all returned in the API response and provide customers details on authorized and rejected transactions.

• rawAcquirerResponse: this is returned by issuers or schemes and describes whether a transaction was authorized, or the reason why a transaction was rejected, if applicable.

• refusalReason: these are generated by Adyen when transactions are rejected by issuers to provide an easy interpretation behind why they are being rejected.

• resultCode: the result code summarizes the status of a transaction. These are always mapped to a refusalReason where the value can either be Refused or Error.

Every possible rawAcquirerResponse is mapped to a specific combination of refusalReason and resultCode.

Please consult the documentation for more details behind this.

What is changing?

Currently the mapping between raw acquirer responses and refusal reasons is not always consistent  across card payment methods. For example, the raw acquirer response of 30 : Format error is currently mapped to Acquirer Error for Mastercard and Refused for Visa. Adyen will make changes to how raw acquirer responses are mapped to existing refusal reasons, so they are consistent across all card schemes. No new refusal reasons or result codes will be introduced based on this initiative.

What actions are required from the customer’s side?

Adjustments to your systems may be required if:

The combination of any of the following are being used for any business logic (e.g. a retry model): rawAcquirerResponse + refusalReason

• rawAcquirerResponse + resultCode

• rawAcquirerResponse + refusalReason + resultCode

Adjustments to your systems may not be required if:

Any of the following are individually being used for any business logic, or not used at all:: 

• rawAcquirerResponse

• refusalReason

• resultCode

• refusalReason + resultCode

Note: Please be aware that counts of refusalReason and resultCode across transactions received may differ once the mapping changes are executed.

Why are these changes happening?

Adyen is committed to providing customers with the most accurate information on their transactions. Therefore, Adyen is standardizing the mapping between raw acquirer responses, refusal reasons, and result codes. This is being done to create the following benefits for customers:

• To provide customers access to the most extensive, complete, and transparent  payment information across all card payment methods.

• Provide customers and Adyen the most accurate refusal data to be able to help both customers and Adyen to optimize payment traffic more efficiently. 

• Allow Adyen to monitor refusals with increased precision and respond faster to any spikes in refusals.

How will these changes be executed?

In order to minimize risk when implementing the mapping changes, Adyen will be rolling this out in groups of payment methods per week over the span of nine weeks. This is to ensure that the changes can be rolled out in a controlled manner in the most accurate way possible. These upcoming changes will also be accessible on the TEST environment starting from June 3, 2024.

When will these changes happen?

Due to the large volume of transactions these changes will impact, Adyen will be rolling out these changes based on the weekly release schedule below. The order of payment methods was chosen based on processing volumes. For convenience, a change log per payment method is provided as well. In the unlikely case of a technical issue from Adyen’s side, the relevant changes will be rolled back and a communication will be promptly sent out.

Note: For the detailed impact on your processing volume, customers should reach out to their account manager.