Intro XL determines whether a debit card should remain active by measuring observed recovery. A card is considered recovered only when the same card later produces a successful payment after the decline being evaluated.
Policy
- Disable only Results proven to represent dead cards.
- Keep all other cards active.
- Retry cadence is managed separately from card status.
- A Result is disabled only after showing less than 5% observed recovery with a meaningful sample.
Disable These Results
These Results consistently produced little or no later recovery. Continuing to retry them generally burns gateway fees and lowers approval rates.
| Gateway Result or Result Family | Sample | Observed Recovery | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lost, stolen, pickup, or hold card | Multiple gateways and Result variations | 0.0% | Disable |
| Closed account | Multiple gateways, lenders, and Result variations | 0.0%–3.2% | Disable |
| Invalid account or card number | Multiple gateway-specific Results | 0.0%–3.8% | Disable |
| Fraud, card-absent environment | Payliance exact Result | 1.1% | Disable |
| Card blocked, prior CAT-1 decline | Payliance exact Result | 0.8% | Disable |
| Lifecycle declines | Payliance exact Result | 1.7% | Disable |
| Network error, not supported | Payliance exact Result | 1.1% | Disable |
Keep These Results Active
These Results demonstrated meaningful later recovery or have not been proven to represent dead cards.
Do not permanently disable them because of repeated declines alone.
| Gateway Result or Result Family | Sample | Observed Recovery | Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insufficient funds | Large sample across multiple lenders and gateways | 33%–48% | Keep Active |
| Do not honor | Multiple gateway-specific Results | 20.3%–26.7% | Keep Active |
| Blocked by cardholder | Multiple gateway-specific Results | 26.0%–33.7% | Keep Active |
| Restricted card | Payliance exact Result | 24.8% | Keep Active |
| Suspected fraud | Multiple gateway-specific Results | 11.7%–19.1% | Keep Active |
| Blocked, first used | Payliance exact Result | 12.3% | Keep Active |
| Card Not Activated | Loan Payment Pro exact Result | 13%–14% | Keep Active |
| Transaction not supported or blocked by issuer | Payliance exact Result | 8.8% | Keep Active |
| Transaction not supported or blocked by issuer | Loan Payment Pro exact Result | 23.1% | Keep Active |
| Expired card, activity limit, and other unproven Results | Limited or fragmented exact-Result data | Varies | Keep Active until proven dead |
Processor and System Results
Network, routing, formatting, and processor errors generally do not indicate that a card is invalid. They should not count toward automatic disabling unless the exact Result is specifically listed in the Disable table. For example, the Payliance Result network error, not supported showed approximately 1.1% recovery and is treated as a dead-card Result despite its wording.
Retry Guidance
- Disable only the proven dead Results listed above.
- Keep all other cards active, even after repeated failures.
- Manage retry cadence separately. Active does not mean retry every night.
- After repeated failures, move attempts to payroll-linked, weekly, or manual timing.
- Track each card independently because one loan may have multiple cards.
- Reduced-amount attempts remain part of the same card-recovery sequence.
Implementation
- Match the gateway’s full normalized Result.
- Maintain separate mappings for each payment gateway.
- Use exact Result matching whenever possible.
- Apply longest-match-wins when partial matching is required.
- Do not rely on broad words such as network, fraud, blocked, or restricted.
- Track recovery by unique card, not by transaction count.
- Evaluate reduced-amount attempts as part of the same recovery sequence.
Methodology
Recovery means the same card produced a successful payment after the decline being evaluated.
Earlier successful payments are ignored. The analysis is based on unique cards rather than raw transaction volume, so heavily retried cards do not distort the results. Observed recovery rates are minimums because the available lender files cover a limited observation period.
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