Skip to main content

Authorisation

 

 

 

Eric Wachs profile photo

Eric Wachs

Vice President, Product Management, Mastercard

Help turn more declines into approvals with smarter payment optimisation

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 Retailers 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 underutilised. Retailers and acquirers typically optimise 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 affect 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 basket 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 centre 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 authorisation signals or limited visibility across the payments ecosystem. For retailers, the result is friction at the moment that matters most.

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

From declines to decisions

Payment Optimisation Platform was built for retailers to address this challenge from a different vantage point. At its core, Payment Optimisation 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, retailers receive timely alerts that help them act when authorisation conditions are more favourable. This approach helps reduce unnecessary decline attempts while supporting more efficient recovery of eligible transactions.

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

With Payment Optimisation Platform, retailers can benefit from:

More informed decisions around authorisation retries 

 

Data icon

More control over which transactions to act on

Controls icon

Focused alerts that can reduce authorisation retries

Announcement icon

Because Payment Optimisation Platform is part of Retailer Cloud, it is designed to integrate with existing payment set-up, helping retailers enhance performance without rearchitecting their entire payments infrastructure. Early pilots with retailers 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 Optimisation Platform is not just in optimisation, but in clarity. Retailers 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, optimisation will increasingly depend on intelligence that spans the entire payments journey. Payment Optimisation Platform reflects this shift, helping retailers 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, retailers 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. Retailers are better equipped to prioritise recovery efforts, reduce unnecessary retries and respond more effectively to declines without adding operational complexity.

By bringing payment alerts into Merchant Cloud, Payment Optimisation Platform helps retailers 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 Optimisation Platform (POP), a network‑based solution that leverages Mastercard data to enrich authorisation 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 authorisation performance.

Follow on LinkedIn
Eric Wachs