As per my other topic, I purchased a Costa coffee this morning yet it isn’t showing against my balance I thought it was instantly updated?
Just linking in the other topic for reference.
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Thanks Ben it easier when it all in one thread
I’ve answered the slow authorisation question but since this could be an issue on Monzo’s side (the app not picking up the notification) I’m not 100% sure that the issue is the same.
@AppTester has the transaction appeared in your balance now? Was the transaction approved but you didn’t receive the notification?
Hi, transaction was approved. I recieved my notificaton approx 45 minutes later.
I have full 4G in liverpool city centre too, just to rule that out.
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In that case, my guess is that Costa’s POS terminal was offline when the transaction was made & then connected after 45 minutes -
Offline Transactions
Sometimes, POS terminals aren’t able to establish a data connection to their Merchant Acquirer. Typically, this happens on aeroplanes and trains. In such a case, the card chip can be programmed to work in “offline” mode for a limited number of transactions. When the POS re-establishes a data connection (eg the aeroplane lands), the payments are uploaded to the Acquirer. The first the Issuer sees of this payment is in the “Presentment” file, which may be a day or two later.
From this blog -
But it would be nice to know whether there are any other possible explanations…
I doubt that given the time it took to connect and authorise as described in this thread.
Sounds just like something just got held up somewhere between Monzo’s incoming transaction processing and the device? Very occasionally I’ll experience a similar thing where the notification will get held up. With the exception of an unrelated bug on two transactions, they have always notified within the hour or shown up after a manual refresh.
So just to clarify, are you saying that the terminal wouldn’t have tried to connect to the merchant acquirer if it had been offline? Could it try to connect & then if the connection fails, process the transaction offline?
I have also experienced this too.
Take 2 at this.
If the terminal has taken the PIN and gone to the merchant acquirer, it has already selected to use online PIN authorisation. If it had timed out then it would have returned some kind of local decline/error and started the whole process again with a different cardholder verification method (CVM), requiring another PIN entry (this time using the offline plaintext/enciphered PIN CVM rather than the online PIN CVM) and likely a removal/insertion of the card.
Because it took 45 seconds and eventually came back approved, this leads me to believe that the card was successfully used online but just took a very long time to initially connect to the acquirer (there are SLAs and strict timeouts at every stage from there onwards). Additionally, if the transaction had been offline, I believe (but am totally willing to be wrong) that it would not have appeared within the hour during the day or generated a push notification (as in a notifying one with sound, not a passive notification).
I’m not sure if offline transactions are able to be sent to the network at a later time but before presentment. That would be the only thing I can think of that would smash my theory but it doesn’t explain a potential silent CVM change.
All of this leads me to believe that the holdup was roughly somewhere between where Monzo handle approvals/declines and the client app on the device. That is where I would start looking internally to troubleshoot this at least.
Update: Perhaps the 45 minute delay between authorisation and the transaction hitting the app was related to the incident this morning or the fixing of it? I know that this specifically calls out topups though.
https://mondo.statuspage.io/incidents/kmzb29cpt546
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just for clarity, i didnt enter my PIN, it was contactless. I use this machine most days and have never had a delay like that
perhaps it was because it was the first time i had used the card?
Update - i used it in sainsburys in conjunction with my PIN this lunch time and the authorisation was within 2 seconds i would say.
Dammit, I knew there was something I had forgotten here, that was it. If you have anything other than an Alpha card, offline contactless should not be possible using Monzo anyway.
Sainsbury’s terminals are all permanently online and connected to their acquirer so there’s nothing to hold up the authorisation.
what behaviour should i expect if i attempt an offline contactless with my beta card? (so i know for future reference)
An immediate decline or a message telling you to use chip and PIN instead.
thanks, useful to know. 