Hey bunqers 🌈
We understand that encountering a failed online payment can be a bit frustrating. But don't worry, we're here to help!
In this topic, we'll guide you through the steps to troubleshoot and resolve common issues that might cause an online payment to fail. We'll also provide some insights into what different error messages might mean.
Wrong Card details 💳
If you're trying to pay online with your bunq card and the payment is declined, the first thing to do would be checking again your card details and make sure you entered the correct card number, expiry date and you current CVC code, especially if you've the rotating CVC feature on.
You can find your card details here or in the app under Cards > Select the right card > Card details
Merchant is blocked 🚫
If a payment to the same merchant failed more than 3 times within an hour, we'll block all transactions to this merchant for 60 minutes for security reasons. The failures can happen when you filled the card details incorrectly or if the merchant for some reason couldn’t process the information properly.
In this situation, you should wait an hour before you try to make another payment to this merchant. Be sure to turn off the rotating CVC feature in your card settings, which allows the merchant to use the correct CVC.
Insufficient balance 💵
When you're trying to pay an amount bigger than the one on your account, the payment won't go through to make sure you don’t fall into debt. In this situation, you should top up your account or link your card to another bunq account to complete the payment.
Card isn't active 💳
In order to be approved, card payments must be done with an active card. This means that if you've just ordered you card and didn't activate it yet or if you card is temporarily frozen, the payment won't go through. In these cases, you should first activate your card before you try to pay again.
No 3DS2/Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) 🔓
To increase the security of online card payments across the EEA region, new regulations were implemented on Jan 1st, 2021. This brought with it a new star - the 3DS2 security feature, otherwise known as Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). When you make an online payment, you can now easily authorize it through a push notification from the bunq app! However, in some cases, the merchant doesn't have things set up quite right on their end to meet these high security standards, and your payment might not go through. In this situation, it'd be best to use another payment method if possible. You can read more on this topic here
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