Transaction life-cycle

This page explains how transactions work behind-the-scenes – what happens once the customer has completed their checkout session.

3-D Secure (SCA)

3-D Secure is a protocol designed to reduce fraud and chargebacks during e-commerce transactions.
Data from the payment session and the customer’s device is shared with the issuer to evaluate the level of risk.
In most cases, payments are deemed low risk, and will be processed without prompting customers for authentication.
If considered high risk, customers will be prompted to authenticate their identity before they can continue.
Following authentication, in the event of a dispute, the issuer will usually take liability for the chargeback.
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When a payment is processed, this is recorded in our system as an “AUTH” request (short for authorisation).
The settle status is used to indicate the state of the transaction.
When a payment has been authorised by the acquiring bank, the settle status will normally be set to “0”.

Following a successful authorisation, funds are reserved against the customer’s bank account until settlement.
During this time, you can perform queries and updates through our Webservices API, or MyST (our online transaction management portal).
Updates can only be performed when the settle status is “0” or “1”.

Settlement typically occurs within 24 hours, but this can vary depending on the banks involved and payment method.
Once settled, the funds will be transferred to your bank account. This updates the settle status to “100”.
You can perform refunds by submitting a request using our Webservices API, or MyST (our online transaction management portal).
For some payment types, the transaction may have status “10”, meaning settlement is in progress but not yet complete.

If a transaction is cancelled or a failure occurs at any point in the process, the settle status is set to “3”.
Further actions cannot be performed and the funds will be released back to the customer’s bank account.
If you look at the error code, you can learn the reason for any unexpected failures.