Skip to main content

Authorization

 

 

 

Eric Wachs profile photo

Eric Wachs

Vice President, Product Management, Mastercard

Help turn more declines into approvals with smarter payment optimization

4 min read · 2026

 

Woman with glasses sitting in front of laptop

In digital commerce, every transaction tells a story. Some end with seamless approvals that reinforce customer trust and loyalty. Others stall at checkout, turning intent into lost revenue and strained customer relationships. As digital commerce continues to scale across channels, and geographies, improving approval rates has become one of the most critical, and most complex, challenges merchants face.

Digital transactions can be inherently complex because they travel through multiple systems, rely on complicated data fields, and must balance security with speed. Along the way, valuable information can be lost, misinterpreted, or underutilized. Merchants and acquirers typically optimize within their own environments, but even the most sophisticated strategies are constrained by the data they can see.

As online volumes grow and consumer expectations rise, these constraints are no longer sustainable. Consumers increasingly expect payments to “just work,” regardless of where they shop or how they pay. When they don’t, the impact goes beyond a single lost sale. Failed transactions can erode trust, reduce repeat business, and push customers toward competitors.

Why payment declines are a major challenge in digital commerce

 

Payment declines impact far more than a single transaction. When legitimate payments fail, the impact can ripple across the entire customer relationship.

Lost revenue that may never be recovered

Chart line down

Increased cart abandonment and customer frustration

Consumer purchasing online

Erosion of brand trust, especially in high-consideration purchases

Shield unsafe icon

Higher operational effort as teams investigate issues without clear answers

Investigation icon

At the center of this challenge is the reality that not all declines are created equal. While true fraud is a legitimate reason to stop a transaction, in many cases, declines occur in the ambiguous space in between. These false declines often stem from fragmented data, inconsistent authorization signals, or limited visibility across the payments ecosystem. For merchants, the result is friction at the moment that matters most.

This is where smarter payment optimization becomes essential, and where our Payment Optimization Platform including its payment alerts service, part of Mastercard Merchant Cloud, can play a powerful role.

From declines to decisions

Payment Optimization Platform was built for merchants to address this challenge from a different vantage point. At its core, Payment Optimization Platform monitors payments for relevant decline signals and identifies when conditions indicate a higher likelihood of approval at a different point in time. 

Rather than relying on manual reviews or repeated retries, merchants receive timely alerts that help them act when authorization conditions are more favorable. This approach helps reduce unnecessary decline attempts while supporting more efficient recovery of eligible transactions.

With payment alerts, Payment Optimization Platform supports merchants by delivering proactive signals tied to decline activity. These alerts are designed to help merchants decide when to act, rather than requiring changes to how transactions are authorized. By focusing attention on the right transactions at the right time, payment alerts help merchants improve recovery while maintaining control over their existing payment flows.

With Payment Optimization Platform, merchants can benefit from:

More informed decisions around authorization retries 

 

Data icon

More control over which transactions to act on

Controls icon

Focused alerts that can reduce authorization retries

Announcement icon

Because Payment Optimization Platform is part of Merchant Cloud, it is designed to integrate with existing payment setups, helping merchants enhance performance without rearchitecting their entire payments infrastructure. Early pilots with merchants show a 9% to 15% increase in conversions, underscoring the value of applying network intelligence to one of commerce’s most persistent pain points.

As a result, the value of Payment Optimization Platform is not just in optimization, but in clarity. Merchants gain access to insights that help them move from reactive troubleshooting to proactive performance management.

 

 

Finger tapping icon on phone

From friction to momentum

 

As digital commerce continues to evolve, optimization will increasingly depend on intelligence that spans the entire payments journey. Payment Optimization Platform reflects this shift, helping merchants move beyond trial‑and‑error approaches and toward data‑driven decisions that work in near real time.

For successful merchants, improving approval rates won’t just be about recovering lost revenue. It’s about creating trust at checkout, where confidence, speed, and reliability shape how customers perceive a brand. When transactions flow smoothly, merchants are better positioned to build loyalty, expand globally, and support new commerce experiences as they emerge.

The value of payment alerts lies in focus and clarity. Merchants are better equipped to prioritize recovery efforts, reduce unnecessary retries, and respond more effectively to declines without adding operational complexity.

By bringing payment alerts into Merchant Cloud, Payment Optimization Platform helps merchants move beyond one-size-fits-all strategies and toward more intentional, insight-driven actions. The result is a smoother customer experience and stronger payment performance, supported by signals that fit naturally into existing payment operations.

Eric Wachs

Vice President, Product Management

 

Eric Wachs is the global product lead for Mastercard’s Payment Optimization Platform (POP), a network‑based solution that leverages Mastercard data to enrich authorization messages and deliver actionable insights that help convert declines into approvals. He joined Mastercard in 2012 and brings extensive experience in building and scaling digital products focused on improving authorization performance.

Follow on LinkedIn
Eric Wachs