Blog > Credit Card Processing Outages: Why They Happen & What To Do

Credit Card Processing Outages: Why They Happen & What To Do

By |Last Updated: June 18th, 2024|

While credit cards are one of the most preferred payment methods by consumers and businesses, this technology can still be subject to technical errors and processing outages.

Luckily, there are preventative measures, effective management strategies, and reliable security solutions that can help merchants properly address credit card outages to minimize damages.

Before you learn more about the tips and tricks to navigate system failures, it’s important first to understand what credit card processing outages are and why they can occur.

What is a credit card processing outage?

Businesses interested in accepting credit cards must invest in card processing systems provided by payment processors to transmit customers’ credit card data to their merchant accounts.

Credit card machines, online checkout systems, or other payment channels are required to properly operate card processing systems. Therefore, these systems can experience software disruptions, technical issues, hardware malfunctioning, and overall system failures known as credit card processing outages.

When a credit card processing outage occurs, your payment processing system may temporarily go offline, experience limited functionality, or stop working altogether which prevents your business from accepting credit cards until the issue is resolved.

How do credit card processing outages occur?

Credit card processing outages can occur for a variety of reasons that stem anywhere from regional power outages to internal functionality issues with your payment processor.

The most common ways a credit card processing outage can occur include…

  • Internet issues
  • Widespread power outages
  • Hardware malfunctioning
  • Problems with your payment software