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Rounding off another week in payments and momentum at Transact365 continues to grow. We reported this past week that our growth is 300% up from 2021 and with more solutions and products in the offing, that number shows no sign of decreasing. The thing about momentum, is that it needs to be continually fuelled with kinetic energy. If we all stop peddling on the bike, the dynamo loses power, and the lights go out...  

One way of creating and continuing momentum is to ensure that everyone within our business feels empowered. There is no greater joy for any leader or entrepreneur to work with people who feel they can contribute without fear. Instilling that confidence has allowed the team to learn about all of the different facets of payments, to become genuinely excited about solving problems and ultimately to be part of a fintech company that has been built from the ground up that shows all the signs of achieving success at the very top level in payments.

This week, an issue arose where a merchant complained of a series of failed and fraudulent transactions from one of their own long standing, established customers based in Italy. We often talk within the sales and account management spheres of building “an armoury of knowledge.” What this means is that when qualifying a new merchant, or handling problematic transactions, we delve into the armoury in our minds and try to locate the best weapons or tools (based on all of our experiences) to onboard a merchant or solve a problem.

However, the armoury of knowledge is best used when it comes to working out why a transaction has failed. Transact365’s support team have, over time, built such a strong inventory within the armoury, that problems can be solved quickly and, returning to the example above with our Italian cardholder, this is what happened. The customer illustrated a near perfect pattern of spending a few hundred Euros each month without any problems. Yet at the start of June when, as the merchant reported, the transactions began failing.

One of our senior account managers was tasked with looking into it. What we witnessed was the use of the armoury at near lightning speed, based on all of her experiences dealing with transactions to date. Her first port of call was to look at the last approved transaction which occurred in May. She studied all of the basic field information and noted that 3D secure cleared no problem. Then she looked at the failed transaction in question. The first thing she observed was that 3D secure had not been cleared. This is detective work in action. What is in the armoury of knowledge that is going to make the difference here? How do we go from 100% approvals on this customer’s card to 100% fails in a matter of weeks? She knows if she solves the problem, she’s a hero to the merchant and she’s expanding her own knowledge base.

She informed the merchant, that the customer hadn’t validated 3D Secure. The merchant, after checking, suggested that the cardholder hadn’t even been given the option and that 3Ds must be a problem with the issuer. This is the default position and a common misnomer. At no point is the cardholder or the merchant in the wrong here... It has to be the issuer. Our position of course is to suggest that if the issuer was ok with the cardholder for the last two years, why would there be a problem in June? Unless of course something had changed on the fields being passed or on the cardholder’s side.

Her next move was to punch the bin range into the system and check to see if there were any 3Ds irregularities with the issuer. It threw up a few cards passing through fine. What transpired was that the customer had changed his mobile phone number and that the transaction couldn’t pass because the 3Ds verification codes were being sent to a previous phone. Looking more closely at the patterns, the customer had attempted to pay 4 times. 4 times the 3Ds request went to the wrong phone number. The 5th attempt yielded and issuer fraud alert. Upon advising the customer of this, he defaulted to his previous phone number and a new attempt at the transaction was approved. Great job Marcie!

This is granular account management at its best and this scenario now lives in the armoury alongside all of the other experiences. It is why Transact365 is proven to increase conversions and reduce fraud. Moreover, it is exactly the reason for our 300% year on year growth. Our team feel empowered and excited to embrace these types of challenges for the benefit of every single merchant we work with. A rising tide is coming into Transact365 waters, and boats are floating.