Partial Authorisation

Partial Authorization is a transaction process used in card payments where the purchase amount exceeds the available credit or balance on the cardholder's account. In such cases, instead of declining the transaction outright, the card issuer approves a portion of the transaction up to the available limit. This allows the transaction to proceed, but only for an amount that the cardholder can currently cover.

This process is particularly useful in retail settings where a cardholder wishes to use all the remaining credit or funds available on their card, but still needs to complete a purchase that exceeds that amount. At the point of sale, after a partial authorization is received, the merchant will inform the cardholder of the authorized amount and request an additional form of payment to cover the remaining balance of the purchase.

The benefits of partial authorization include:

For merchants, enabling partial authorization requires a point-of-sale system that can handle this type of transaction, which includes notifying the customer of the partial approval amount and facilitating the completion of the transaction with another payment method. This process ensures that transactions are processed smoothly and efficiently, enhancing the shopping experience for consumers and reducing the incidence of abandoned purchases due to payment issues.