This article runs through common reasons your card transaction might be rejected, declined or fail.
Virtual or physical cards
1. Amount exceeded limits on the card
Your card may have a spending limit on individual transactions, and also limits on how much you can spend per day/week/month. Any transactions that exceed those limits will unfortunately fail. You can see the limits that apply to your card in your account, just beneath the card details.
Failure message - 'Card’s spend limit exceeded'
2. Insufficient funds in your business' Airwallex wallet
If your payment fails but you haven't exceeded any of your card limits, it may be that the business your card is associated with doesn't have sufficient funds in their Airwallex wallet for you to make the payment. You may not be able to see the overall account balance, depending on your user permissions, so it's best to speak to an Admin on the account so that they can check the balance and make a deposit if needed.
Insufficient funds can occur in 2 scenarios.
- If the transaction was made in the currency where we support direct billing, we will attempt to deduct the transaction amount first through the direct billing currency, then through the primary currency wallet you have selected. If the wallets do not have sufficient funds, the transaction will be declined. Do note we will only deduct the funds if either of your wallets has sufficient funds for the entire transaction amount. We will not be able to debit your wallet if you only have partial amounts in both wallets.
- If the transaction was made in a currency where we do not support direct billing, we will attempt to deduct the transaction amount through the primary currency wallet you have selected. You can check and select your primary currency through your Webapp, under the Cards section, within the Settings tab.
Failure message - 'Insufficient balance'
Physical cards
1. Physical card isn't activated yet
If you try to use your physical card before activating it, it will fail. This will happen, even if you've been successfully using the virtual counterpart. Head to your account, click the banner encouraging you to activate your physical card, and follow the prompts to get it set up.
Failure message - 'Card is not activated. Activate card and try again.'
Online card payments (3DS verification)
If you're being asked to submit a 3DS verification code and:
- you aren't receiving the code - see this article.
- you're submitting the code but it's incorrect - see this article.
- you're submitting the code and the transaction is failing - please read the "Virtual or physical cards" section of this article to see if any of these reasons may apply.
If you’ve tried submitting the code too many times and it’s telling you to contact support, you can get in touch with our customer support team here.
Google / Apple Pay
If your transactions are declining, you’ll be able to see ‘Declined’ in your transaction history.
If your transactions are declining, it could be due to the fund limit on your card, or a lack of funds in your business’ Airwallex account. See above under “Virtual or physical cards” for more details.
If you don’t believe it to be either of those issues, you can contact our customer support team, who will be able to investigate further for you.