Transaction decline reasons

This page gives details on the types of decline reasons you might see for an attempted transaction and explains possible reasons. Please note that the below list may not be exhaustive and will be supplemented over time.

Decline message	Reason
Account has insufficient funds	Account has insufficient funds
Declined due to Card Status: Card Destroyed	Cardholder is attempting to use cancelled card
Declined due to Card Status: Short-term Debit Block	Cardholder is attempting to use blocked card
Declined due to Card Status: Expired card	Cardholder is attempting to use expired card
Declined due to Card Status: Restricted card (Card is not active)	Cardholder is attempting to use the card before activation
Authorisation would exceed card limit	Cardholder is attempting a transaction that would cause the card to exceed its lifetime spend limit
Declined due to CardUsageGroupCheck	Cardholder is attempting an unsupported transaction type for the card product e.g. balance inquiry at ATM
Requires SCA, Card	Cardholder is attempting a contactless transaction but due to limits on the number they can do in a row/accumulative amount they can spend, they temporarily aren’t permitted for contactless and need to use PIN / SCA.
Card expiry check failed with Emboss Expiry date	Cardholder has entered incorrect expiry date as part of ecommerce transaction
Expiry Date missing	Cardholder has not entered expiry date as part of ecommerce transaction
Card CVV2 not matching with cvv2 in auth request	Cardholder has entered incorrect CVC2 as part of ecommerce transaction
CVC2 tries exceeded	Cardholder has used incorrect CVC2 the max number of times and now the CVC2 is blocked
CVV2 Not Present	Cardholder has not entered CVC2 as part of ecommerce transaction
Incorrect PIN	Cardholder is attempting transaction with incorrect PIN
Offline PIN incorrect	Cardholder is attempting transaction with incorrect PIN
Online / offline PIN try limit exceeded	Cardholder has used incorrect PIN the max number of times and now the PIN is blocked
Declined due to GroupMCCCheck	Cardholder is attempting transaction at a merchant type that is not permitted (MCC restriction in place)
Invalid Merchant	Cardholder is attempting transaction at a merchant type that not permitted
Exceeds withdrawal amount limit	Cardholder is attempting a transaction which would exceed the card velocity (daily/monthly/annual or lifetime limit)
Exceeds Max Per Transaction limit	Transaction value exceeds the limit currently set on the card per transaction
Processor declined: DR: Declined due to Card Status: Security Violation	Transaction attempted on Suspended Account / Card
Timeout	Network / System Related outage at Processor. Cardholder Should retry transaction
Processor declined: DR: Requires SCA. Transaction Amount (X) higher than Authentication Amount (Y) by up to 20%	a pre-authorization has been taken for a specific amount, acting as a hold that the merchant can draw from the card. However, the final authorization amount may vary. The Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is provided during this initial pre-auth. Subsequent authorizations may be either approved or softly declined, depending on certain parameters. If soft declined, the SCA process must be redone. In e-commerce scenarios, this will involve going through the Cardinal system and supplying the Knowledge Based Authentication (KBA).