Terminology
We use the terms 'Store and Forward = SAF = Store & Forward' interchangeably.
Welcome to Store & Forward
To process a transaction the payment terminal needs to have internet access. When there's a temporary loss of internet connectivity, you can continue making point-of-sale payments by enabling offline payments.
Offline payments are suitable for:
- Integrated payment terminals. Note that depending on your integration type (this is determined by the POS provider) you may need to use standalone transaction to make use of offline mode.
- Standalone payment terminals with a built-in printer
Key Points
- Store & Forward will automatically be activated as a fall-back method of processing payments if your terminal’s connection drops out.
- Once you’re reconnected, these transactions automatically get forwarded to the bank for processing. We suggest keeping all your offline receipts as a back-up.
- Store & Forward is a feature enabled on request. Please fill in the authorisation form with your desired limits.
- All transactions processed via SAF are charged at the normal transaction rate as per your contract.
When will Store & Forward trigger?
- Internet connection drops out and there is no 4G backup
- the merchant’s wifi network drops out
- the acquirers backend is not available because of an outage
- the card scheme is not available
What happens when Store & Forward is triggered?
When Store and Forward is triggered the pinpad approves and temporarily stores this transaction offline. Once the connection is restored, the stored transactions are forwarded to the back-end for processing and online approval. At this stage, the card issuer can still make the decision to approve or decline the transaction.
- Approved: When the transaction is approved by the issuer, merchants are protected against chargebacks in the same way as with regular issuer-approved transactions.
- Declined: When transactions are approved in Store and Forward mode, there is a liability shift to the Merchant. This means the merchant takes (financial) responsibility for the transactions that are initially approved by Store and Forward but that might shortly after be declined by the issuer (for example, in the case of a fraudulent card or no funds availble on the account).
Which Payment Types are accepted in Store & Forward mode?
Supported:
- Contactless
- Contact chip transactions
Not supported:
- Magnetic stripe transactions
Which Payment Methods are accepted in Store & Forward mode?
Supported:
- Visa Debit
- Visa Credit
- MasterCard Debit
- MasterCard Credit
- Eftpos
- Amex
Any Cardholder Verification Method (CVM), such as PIN and signature, can be processed.
Not supported:
- Some local debit card schemes
- QR code wallets
- Cashout
- Refunds
Store & Forward Limits
- Per transaction limit: $100 default.
You can change this by given authorisation to increase the limit here. - Maximum number transactions per pinpad: 999-2000 based on the terminal model
- Floor Limit (note this is only applicable to a subset of pinpad models) the maximum total transaction amount per pinpad per day: $10,000 default.
Risks
As the payment terminal approves payments without any verification, there is a risk of payments being declined by the issuer, the average authorisation rates range from 95% in some industries to several percentage points higher. Once uploaded we automatically retry failed Store and Forward payments to increase authorisation rates.
Risks include:
- Declined Transactions
There is a higher risk of transactions being declined by the issuer when processed offline -
Failed Captures
Merchants are fully liable for the risk of failed captures related to payments processed offline.This means they may not receive payment for goods or services already provided to customers.
-
Chargebacks and Disputes
There is an increased risk of chargebacks and disputes for offline transactions, and merchants are fully responsible for these -
Card Fraud
Offline processing carries a higher risk of card fraud going undetected, as transactions are approved without real-time verification -
Data Storage
Offline transactions require storing sensitive payment data on the terminal until it can be transmitted, which creates potential security vulnerabilities - Physical Damage
If the pinpad breaks while storing offline authorisations, those transactions could be permanently lost.
How it works
- You initiate a payment like you usually do.
- When the customer completes the payment, the pinpad tries to reach the payments platform, but is unable to establish a connection.
- The pinpad verifies whether the payment can be completed offline, by running the following checks:
- Are offline payments enabled? If no, the payment is Declined.
- Is the card configured by the issuer to process offline payments?
- Has the payment pinpad reached its maximum number of store-and-forward offline payments yet?
- Is the transaction amount within the maximum transaction amount for the type of offline payment?
- Does the payment scheme support offline payments?
- If Approved, the pinpad stores the card data and details of the transaction.
- If you are using a standalone pinpad, it will print the receipt.
- If the pinpad is still connected to the POS system, the pinpad generates a transaction response including data you can use to generate a receipt.
- Later, when the pinpad is able to connect to the internet again, it sends the stored payments to the payments platform for further processing.
FAQ
How will the pinpad determine when to cut over to ‘offline mode’?
The pin pad will switch to offline processing without any user input. The cloud icon on the home screen will disappear indicating that it’s processing the transactions in offline mode.
The diagnostic test can be made by hitting 9 + 🟢 → Diagnostics option & PSP connection to check the status
Will a user be able to see if a PIN Pad is in an “offline mode” (perhaps an icon across the top of the PIN Pad)?
Yes, there are indicators to confirm that the pinpad is operating in offline mode. If the pinpad is connected to network but no internet, then the below are the indications
- Cloud Icon will disappear indicating the terminal is not processing the transactions online
- You will see pending transaction icon indicating that there are transactions sitting on the pinpad
- PSP connection test will fail
If the pinpad is not connected to network because the cable is pulled out, then network disconnect message is shown.
Will I be able to see if a pinpad has any transactions stored which haven’t been sent online yet?
Yes, the pending transaction icon is seen. The pinpad will start to sync the pending transactions after immediately connecting to internet and the icon will disappear after the transactions are sent for processing.
Does a pinpad check with each transaction attempt whether it can go online before failing over to offline?
The pinpad always tries to process the transaction online first. If it fails it will fall back to offline methods automatically.
How often does a pinpad check whether it can go online to send transactions it might have stored on it? Is this automated?
The pinpad will start to sync the pending transactions automatically after connecting to internet and the icon will disappear after the transactions are sent for processing.
Is there a way for them to see how many offline transactions are stored on a PIN Pad?
No there is no way to see the number of offline transactions stored in pinpad. It only shows the pending icon indicating that there are unsent transactions.