Transaction processing time

[marcel_w]

Hey,

Not sure if it is due to being a beta or the merchants service provider, but I realized when paying with :mondo: it can sometimes take a significant time longer untill the transaction is approved then when using a legacy bank card.

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

Hey Marcel, I’m guessing you’re referring to transactions made using offline terminals…

Here’s why they take longer -

Contactless with TfL

I have noticed this and done timing comparisons between different payment methods and card types. The short answer is that Oyster is by far the fastest, followed by contactless cards that will accept fully offline transactions, then the slowest (that I’ve found) is contactless cards that require online transactions or server checks. The last one includes tokenised payment methods such as Apple Pay or Android Pay. Monzo also falls in to the online category, from what I’ve been able to gather, t…

Since Monzo will still try to push all transactions online (to send you notifications, a live balance etc.) after the debit cards launch, my guess is that you’ll continue to see this delay.

[marcel_w]

I don’t actually think they offline terminals. This normally happens in sandwich shops or my local offlicenc shop.

[Rika]

The terminals might not be 100% offline but terminals in independent stores I find have to actually dial back over a phone line (or similar long connection times such as over GSM). To speed things up, they will process supported cards (almost all adult current or credit accounts with major banks) offline and then check in with the processor at a later time.

Since Monzo cards are set up in a way that they want the terminal to connect back, these terminals must, on every transaction with a Monzo card, dial back and go through a lengthy connection process with their card processor and acquirer to contact Monzo to check if your card is frozen, if you have enough balance, push the notification out, etc.

The reason you don’t see that in larger retail operations is that those card terminals are always connected. There is no dialup and check-in time every transaction if the terminal is always active and connected to the payment processor.