In global payments, getting a customer to the checkout is only half the challenge. What happens next—the approval or rejection of that transaction—can make or break your revenue targets. For finance leaders and heads of payments, authorisation rates are a critical metric that signals efficiency, trust, and financial performance.
Understanding authorisation rates and the payment process
Authorisation refers to the decision a cardholder's issuing bank makes to approve or decline a transaction. The authorisation rate measures how many attempted payments are successfully authorised. While often conflated with payment acceptance rate, authorisation is only one part of the payment journey. Capture, where funds are secured post-authorisation, completes the transaction.
Card authorisation can fail for many reasons, from outdated card information to incorrect billing details. Pre-authorisation and incremental authorisation allow merchants to verify card validity or adjust the transaction amount after initial approval, especially useful in travel, hospitality and subscription services.
Why authorisation matters more than ever
Authorisation may only take milliseconds, but its impact echoes across your entire business. Higher authorisation rates mean more successful transactions, fewer lost sales, and stronger conversion rates.
They also reduce the cost and complexity of handling failed transactions, lighten the load on customer support teams, and improve the overall customer experience.
Reliable approvals support cleaner payment data, faster reconciliation, and steadier cash flow. And perhaps most importantly, they build trust, both with your customers and the issuing banks that assess every transaction.
Common causes of authorisation issues
Many authorisation problems stem from avoidable issues in data handling, system design, or network trust. Recognising these common triggers is the first step toward resolving them:
- Outdated card details: Expired card numbers or closed accounts not updated.
- Incorrect billing information: Mismatches between submitted data and issuer records.
- Weak authentication: Transactions failing 3D Secure or lacking SCA.
- Cross-border processing: Foreign acquirers triggering higher decline rates.
- Limited issuer trust: Sparse metadata or vague transaction tagging.
- Latency or timeout: Delays in the checkout process causing session expiration.
- Fraud triggers: Legitimate transactions flagged by overly aggressive filters.
The real cost of card declines
The consequences of a failed authorisation go beyond the immediate lost sale. According to PYMNTS Intelligence, 47% of retailers say that false declines severely affect customer satisfaction. For small and medium-sized businesses, the operational impact is even greater, with 58% reporting high disruption from these errors.
Declines are rarely random. Whether it's expired card data, incomplete billing information, or weak authentication, the outcome is the same: a lost sale. Each failed authorisation creates friction in the customer experience and costs more to recover than to prevent.
Trends across global payment data suggest rising sensitivity among issuing banks, particularly with cross-border or incomplete transactions. Even a correct card number paired with mismatched postal codes can trigger a decline. Without visibility into issuer logic, businesses are left guessing.
How local acquiring increases authorisation rates
Processing payments through local acquiring channels builds familiarity. The issuing bank recognises the request as domestic, improving trust and increasing the odds of a successful authorisation. Local entities also reduce the number of intermediary hops, shortening timeouts and limiting communication failures.
Local acquiring:
- Reduces cross-border fees and foreign exchange uplift
- Aligns better with regional regulatory requirements
- Increases authentication success through closer network proximity
- Supports local language, currency, and scheme standards
Businesses transitioning to local setups routinely report double-digit improvements in authorisation rates, particularly in markets with regional processing sensitivities.
Practical strategies to improve authorisation
Customers also abandon transactions when their preferred payment method isn’t available. In those cases, cart abandonment can increase by 4% to 10%, further amplifying revenue loss tied to checkout friction.
Improving authorisation performance takes layered intervention:
- Smart routing: Route each transaction to the processor with the best success probability.
- Adaptive retries: Retry failed transactions using behavioural and issuer-led timing insights.
- Account updater tools: Keep stored card information current to avoid declines on returning customers.
- Network tokenisation: Replace static credentials with adaptive, issuer-trusted tokens.
- Enriched metadata: Send CVC, postal code, transaction type, and other billing information to assist issuer validation.
- Transaction tagging: Mark recurring, subscription, or ecommerce context to support issuer logic.
- Wallet support: Integrate secure tools like Apple Pay to improve authentication rates.
Which businesses benefit most from local acquiring?
Not all merchants feel the impact of acquiring strategy equally. These sectors often see the greatest gains from local models:
- Digital platforms and marketplaces: Complex fund flows and seller diversity make local trust signals essential.
- Travel and hospitality: Long lead times and international bookings increase the risk of card declines.
- Subscription services: Recurring billing needs updated card information and frictionless approvals.
- Retail and e-commerce: High transaction volume magnifies the cost of even a modest dip in authorisation rate.
In each case, local acquiring builds alignment between the merchant, the payment processor, and the issuer.
Conclusion: A local-first mindset to boost authorisation
Low authorisation rates aren’t a cost of doing business, but rather a fixable inefficiency. By moving toward local acquiring, submitting cleaner payment information, and adopting adaptive routing and fraud practices, businesses can convert more of what they already earn.
The result is fewer failed transactions, stronger conversion rates, and a smoother customer experience. Talk to Antom to see how a local-first strategy can help you recover revenue that should have been yours all along.
