Merchant Advice Codes (MAC) & Response Codes

Overview

Visa and Mastercard are implementing new rules in October and November 2021 which require issuers and acquirers to properly use and manage declined transaction response codes, eliminate excessive reattempts and ensure data consistency in authorization transactions. The schemes are implementing new penalty fees to incentivize compliance with these rules. These rules apply to issuers in Europe, AP, Canada and CEMEA.
To support the scheme rules, Bill1st is changing the way in which we handle declined responses.

Changes to VISA decline category grouping

Visa is introducing new rules for decline code reasons. These reasons are grouped into different categories.
The Categories Are:

Category 1 - Issuer Will Never Approve: Codes in this category indicate that the card is invalid, never existed, or blocked.

Authorization Codes

• 03 - Invalid merchant
• 04 - Pickup card
• 07 - Pickup card, special conditions
• 12 - Invalid transaction
• 15 - No such issuer
• 41 - Pickup card lost card
• 43 - Pickup card stolen card
• 57 - Transaction not permitted to cardholder
• 62 - Restricted card
• 78 - No account
• 93 - Transaction cannot be completed
• R0 - Stop payment order
• R1 - Revocation of authorization order
• R3 - Revocation of all authorization

Retry Strategy
Do not attempt to reauthorize these transactions. Cardholders can be advised to contact their bank for further information.

Requirement and Fee Implication:
Between now and April 2022, an Excessive Reattempt rule will apply. No more than 15 continuous reattempts are allowed within a 30-day period. Any further attempts are defined as excessive reattempts. In April 2022, no reattempts will be allowed, and A Never Approve Reattempt fee will begin April 2022. The $0.10 charge per re-attempts over 15 will display on your statement with a "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Domestic*" description. An additional $0.05 per transaction will apply for cross-border transactions and show on statements as "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Cross-Border."

Category 2 - Issuer Cannot Approve at this Time: Codes in this category can indicate several reasons that the Issuer cannot authorize the purchase at the time. However, they may authorize it at a later time. Examples might include credit risk, Issuer velocity controls of the consumer, or temporary system outages.

Authorization Codes

• 19 - Re-enter transaction
• 51 - Insufficient funds
• 59 - Suspected fraud
• 61 - Exceeds withdrawal amount limits
• 65 - Exceeds withdrawal frequency
• 75 - Allowable PIN-entry tries exceeded
• 86 - ATM malfunction
• 91 - Issuer or switch is inoperative
• 96 - System malfunction
• N3 - Cash service not available
• N4 - Cash request exceeds issuer limit

Retry Strategy
Attempts can be made to reauthorize these transactions.

Requirement and Fee Implication
As of April 16, 2021, no more than 15 continuous reattempts are allowed within a 30-day period. Any further attempts are defined as excessive reattempts. An Excessive Reattempt fee will apply in April 2021. The $0.10 charge per re-attempts over 15 will display on your statement with a "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Domestic*" description. An additional $0.05 per transaction will apply for cross-border transactions and show on statements as "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Cross-Border."

Category 3 - Issuer Cannot Approve based on Details Provided: Codes in this category indicate that the Issuer cannot approve based on the details provided, such as an incorrect Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2) or expiration date.

Authorization Codes

• 14 - Invalid account number
• 54 - Expired card
• 55 - Incorrect PIN
• 82 - Negative Online CAMCardholder
• N7 - Decline for CVV2 Failure-Visa

Retry Strategy
Attempts can be made to reauthorize these transactions. Before another attempt, based on the response, obtain additional or updated information from your customer.

Requirement and Fee Implication
As of April 16, 2021, no more than 15 continuous reattempts are allowed within a 30-day period. Any further attempts are defined as excessive reattempts. An Excessive Reattempt fee will apply in April 2021. The $0.10 charge per re-attempts over 15 will display on your statement with a "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Domestic*" description. An additional $0.05 per transaction will apply for cross-border transactions and show on statements as "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Cross-Border."

Category 4 - Generic Response Codes: All other Response Codes, many of which are technical and limited value/meaning to merchants. Issuers will be subject to enforcement actions when not following rules to use codes in Categories 1-3 and limiting codes in Category 4.

Authorization Codes

• All others

Retry Strategy
Attempts can be made to reauthorize these transactions.

Requirement and Fee Implication
As of April 16, 2021, no more than 15 continuous reattempts are allowed within a 30-day period. Any further attempts are defined as excessive reattempts. An Excessive Reattempt fee will apply in April 2021. The $0.10 charge per re-attempts over 15 will display on your statement with a "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Domestic*" description. An additional $0.05 per transaction will apply for cross-border transactions and show on statements as "VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Cross-Border."

The new rules and fees announced as part of this effort are designed to:

• Reduce fraud
• Reduce operational costs
• Improve authorization approval rates
• Ensure authorization consistency
• Enhance decline code management

Mastercard New Response Code Mapping

Mastercard’s new authorization decline program starts by consolidating decline codes into three buckets:

79 - Lifecycle Declines

• 14 Invalid Card Number
• 54 Expired Card

82 - Policy Declines

• 03 Invalid Merchant
• 13 Invalid Amount
• 57 Transaction Not Permitted
• 61 Exceeds Withdrawal amount
• 62 Restricted Card
• 65 Exceeds Withdrawal Count

83 - Security Declines

• 41 Lost Card
• 43 Stolen Card
• 55 Invalid Pin
• 63 Security Violation

Merchant Advice Codes

Merchant Advice Codes (MasterCard), also known as Recurring Payment Cancellation (Visa) is used by issuers to clearly communicate to merchants the reason for declining a MasterCard and Visa recurring payment transaction, and the actions merchants can take to continue to serve their recurring payment customers.
MasterCard issuers use the Merchant Advice Code (MAC) in authorization request responses to communicate with merchants about a cardholder’s account. MasterCard will map these three Authorization Response Categories to one of four Merchant Advice Codes (MAC) depending on the underlying decline code.
MasterCard supports the use of Merchant Advice Codes for issuers to communicate clearly with the merchants:

• The reason for approving or declining a recurring payment transaction.
• The actions merchants can take to continue to serve their recurring payment customers.

Mastercard codes are as follows:

• 01 - Updated information needed. Check Account Updater if the decline code is 79 or 82. Retry using EMV 3DS if decline code is 83
• 02 - Try again later
• 03 - Do Not try again
• 04 - Token requirements not fulfilled for this token type.
• 21 - Payment canceled
• 22 - Merchant does not qualify for product code

VISA codes are as follows:

• 02 - Cardholder only wishes to stop one specific payment in the recurring payment relationship.
• 03 - Cardholder has requested to stop all recurring payment transactions for a specific merchant.
• 21 - All recurring payments have been cancelled for the card number requested.

Transaction Processing Excellence

Mastercard Introduced two new fees as part of its Transaction Processing Excellence (TPE) Program to drive positive processing behavior:

• Excessive Authorization Attempts Fee: Excessive account testing of a single account number, from the same card acceptor, within a 24-hour period.
• Nominal Amount Authorization Fee: An approved nominal amount authorization with a subsequent renewal for transactions with the equivalent of 1 USD, 1 EUR, or under one full until of currency. This is for CNP transactions.

Bill1st Merchant Advice Codes