Understanding declined and unsuccessful transactions

Last updated: June 12, 2026

When transactions fail or are declined, understanding the specific reasons can help you resolve issues quickly and provide better support to your customers. This article explains the common causes of transaction failures and how to investigate them.

Common payment failure statuses

Each payment failure status provides specific information about what went wrong:

  • payment_authorisation_failed: The customer never authorized the payment within their bank app, so the payment could not be initiated. The customer needs to complete the authorization process in their banking application.

  • payment_abandoned: The user never initiated the payment during the checkout session.

  • abandoned_due_to_inactivity: The customer was redirected to their bank to authorize the transaction but never completed the authorization step. This occurs when the customer either times out or closes the page during the bank authorization process. The session expires and no funds are transferred.

  • payment_execution_failed: The payment execution failed, which can be due to SCA timeout or other reasons. To fully understand the specific cause, the failure will need to be queried with the sending bank.

  • payment_rejected: The customer's sending bank declined the payment from being sent out. This can be due to various reasons such as insufficient funds. Advise the customer to contact their bank to understand why the payment was rejected.

  • international_payments_disabled: The customer's bank account has international payments disabled. For example, Swedbank may reject payments with the message "Payment is not possible: please contact your bank to enable international payments." This is a restriction set on the customer's bank account, not a payment processor issue. Advise the customer to contact their bank to enable international transfers on their account.

  • Unknown: The receiving bank was temporarily unavailable from SEPA at the time of initiation.

Investigating failed payments

To get detailed information about a failed transaction:

  1. Go to your merchant dashboard

  2. Navigate to the Transactions or Payments section

  3. Search for the payment using either:

    • The specific failure status (e.g., "cancelled", "payment_rejected", "abandoned_due_to_inactivity") from the status filter

    • The Reference ID in the search bar

  4. Click on the transaction to view its details

  5. Check the details tab for specific failure information

  6. For programmatic access, check the order_updated webhook payload (for failed/cancelled payments) and look at the statusClassification.primary and statusClassification.secondary fields to get the exact failure reason

Payout failures

Payout failures have their own set of common causes:

  • VOP (Verification of Payee) failures: The destination account holder name doesn't match the actual account name

  • Bank rejection: The receiving bank rejected the payout

  • Technical errors: Temporary system issues preventing the payout

How to investigate payout failures

You can retrieve payout failure details through several methods:

  • Check the payout.failed webhook payloads for automatic notifications

  • Use the POST /api/service/payout/retrieve endpoint with the payout ID

  • Review status details in Dashboard → Payouts section

Next steps

When you encounter a failed transaction:

  1. Check the specific failure status to understand the root cause

  2. Review the transaction details in your dashboard

  3. Provide appropriate guidance to your customer based on the failure type

  4. For bank-related issues, advise customers to contact their financial institution