One quarter (26%) of UK consumers who have had a payment declined in the past 12 months admit that they don’t know why it was declined, according to new research from Trustly, the leading global payments platform for digital account-to-account transactions. 

The data - which comes following warnings that ‘Strong Customer Authentication’ (SCA) new fraud rules could see more online payments declined - highlights a concerning trend for businesses. A third of respondents said that after their payment was declined just once, they’d give up on their purchase entirely. This is even more concerning when noting that less than a quarter (23%) of declined payments were caused by a lack of funds. 

According to the survey, consumers' biggest frustrations with making online payments included remembering passwords (37%), inputting card details (33%) and the number of security steps required to complete the payment (25%). 

It’s not only the common frustrations of online shopping that present a potential threat to businesses, but the speed of the check-out process too. Of those consumers who shop online, more than two in five said that the longest they’d be willing to spend in the online checkout process is two to three minutes, with just over one in five (28%) only willing to wait between 30 seconds and one minute. 

“It’s incredibly disruptive - and often panic-inducing - when we see our card payments declined. And this is compounded when we don’t know why our payment can’t be processed”, said Ciaran O’Malley, VP of Ecommerce & Financial Services at Trustly. 

This is one of the reasons we recently launched Trustly Express - which reduces the number of steps at the checkout for returning customers - to enable merchants to significantly improve the payment experience for their end users, driving increased conversion and customer loyalty.”, added O’Malley. 

These findings are part of Trustly’s 2022 Consumer Reporter which outlines the behaviours and preferences of UK consumer’s online shopping habits. It is available to download here.