Soft Declines KPI

Soft Declines

Soft declines occur when a payment attempt is initially rejected by the issuing bank, but the reason is not final—meaning the transaction might succeed if retried or if additional steps are taken. These declines are commonly linked to authentication failures, expired session tokens, or customer-related issues like entering incorrect one-time passwords (OTPs) during 3D Secure.

Unlike hard declines, which indicate a permanent failure (e.g., invalid card number or closed account), soft declines are temporary and often resolvable. Common scenarios include a customer failing 3D Secure authentication, a timeout during the payment process, or a brief issue with the card issuer’s system.

To reduce failed payments due to soft declines, merchants should support automatic retries with 3D Secure enabled, provide clear instructions to users during authentication, and work with their payment providers to implement smart routing and fallback strategies.