Online Authorizations
Online authorizations provide immediate confirmation of funds availability. The customer's
financial institution also reduces the amount of credit available in the customer's account,
setting aside the authorized funds for the merchant to capture at a later time. Authorizations
for most payment cards are processed online. Typically, it is safe to start fulfilling the
order when you receive an authorization confirmation.
An
online authorization confirmation
and the subsequent hold on funds expire after a specific length of time. Therefore it is
important to capture funds in a timely manner. The issuing bank sets the expiration time
interval, but most authorizations expire within 5 to
7 days.The issuing bank does not inform
Cybersource
when an authorization
confirmation expires. By default, the authorization information for each transaction remains
in the Cybersource
database for 180 days after the authorization date. To
capture an authorization that expired with the issuing bank, you can resubmit the
authorization request.