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.