At a glance
The percentage of attempted Viva Payments transactions that succeeded. The complement of decline rate + 3DS abandon rate (success% + decline% + abandon% = 100%). The single cleanest health indicator for the rail; deteriorations show here before they hit volume.
| What it counts | COUNT(StatusId = F) ÷ COUNT(StatusId IN (F, E, M, X)) × 100. Numerator includes only F (Successful); denominator includes all attempted transactions. |
| API endpoint | /api/transactions with no status filter. |
| Currency | Currency-neutral (rate, not amount). |
| 3DS 2 treatment | A frictionless or challenge-completed pass = F (counts). A challenge the customer abandoned = X (drags the rate down via the denominator). A challenge the issuer rejected = E (also drags down). |
| Refunds | Not relevant (refunds are post-success). |
| Disputes | Not relevant. |
| Recurring rebills | Counted. A failed rebill drags success rate; Smart Retry recovery flips it back when retry succeeds. |
| Channels | Online + POS + recurring + pay-by-link blended. POS card-present is structurally near 99% (chip-and-PIN local approval); online card-not-present is typically 88 to 94%. The blended figure depends heavily on channel mix. |
| Time window | 7D vsP (default 7-day rolling). |
| Alert trigger | <92% absolute, OR >3pp drop vs prior week. Sentiment thresholds: good ≥95%, warn ≥90%. |
| Roles | owner, finance, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Viva Payments data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A pan-EU subscription beauty box (“Mediterranean Glow”) on Smart Checkout, recurring rebills monthly. Window 26 Apr 26 to 02 May 26 (7-day).| Channel | F (success) | E + M (declined) | X (abandoned) | Success rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online checkout (new) | 2,840 | 184 | 96 | 2,840 ÷ 3,120 = 91.0% |
| Recurring rebills (1st of month) | 4,210 | 168 | 0 | 4,210 ÷ 4,378 = 96.2% |
| Pay-by-link (B2B wholesale) | 18 | 0 | 1 | 18 ÷ 19 = 94.7% |
- Recurring at 96.2% is healthy. Tokenized rebills against on-file cards generally succeed at 95 to 98% (network tokens via VTS / MDES improve this further). Below 94% suggests stale tokens (cards expired without auto-update) or issuer-side risk-flag changes. Smart Retry recovers 30 to 50% of initial failures over 3 to 7 days, dragging this number up retrospectively.
- Online new at 91.0% is at the lower edge. EU intra-EEA card-not-present typically runs 90 to 95%. Below 90% triggers investigation: top decline reasons, BIN-range outages, 3DS friction, fraud-filter tightening. Open
viv_top_decline_reasonsfirst. - Blended at 94.0% is in healthy range but not great. Note the recurring channel structurally lifts the blended rate; if recurring share dropped, blended rate would drop with no real change in performance. Channel mix is always the lurking variable.
- 3DS abandon at 1.3% is excellent. Frictionless rate around 80 to 85% on online traffic, abandon-on-challenge around 10%. The 96 abandons are a UX cost, not a fraud or issuer cost.
- Pay-by-link at 94.7% is normal. Low volume so the rate is volatile; one declined B2B link at EUR 1,200 ticket can swing it. Don’t over-react to short-term moves on small denominators.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with Success Rate |
|---|---|
viv_decline_rate | The decline component (issuer rejected). |
viv_threedsecure_abandon_rate | The abandon component (customer gave up at challenge). |
viv_top_decline_reasons | The reason-code breakdown when this rate dips. |
viva_payment_methods | Method mix shifts can shift success rate (AmEx and non-EEA cards have higher decline rates). |
viv_volume_trend | Volume drops paired with success-rate drops indicate rail issues; volume drops with steady success rate indicate marketing or merchant issues. |
Stripe stripe_payment_health_score / PayPal pp_payment_health_score | Composite-score peers across rails. |
viva_total_revenue | Direct revenue impact, every 1pp success-rate drop costs roughly 1% of period revenue. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the Viva Payments Dashboard: viva.com/business/account/login. Closest comparable view:Viva Business → Sales → Reports → Transactions (success-rate tile on the overview)Why our number may legitimately differ:
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 3DS abandon attribution | Theirs may show higher | Some Viva Dashboard views group X (abandoned) with F (success), inflating their rate. This card excludes abandons from numerator (correct behaviour). |
| 3DS late completion | Theirs revises upward | Late completions flip X to F retroactively in Dashboard; we update on next sync. |
| Time zone | Boundary days off | Athens / Cyprus timezone vs UTC. |
| Channel scoping | If Dashboard filtered to online only | POS dilutes the blended rate up; Dashboard filtered to online-only shows lower number. |
| Comparison | Expected relationship | When divergence is legitimate |
|---|---|---|
viv_success_rate ↔ stripe.stripe_payment_health_score | Often differ by 1 to 4pp | Different acquirer routing per issuer. Viva’s domestic routing for Greek / Cyprus issuers typically beats Stripe’s by 1 to 3pp. |
viv_success_rate ↔ paypal.pp_payment_health_score | PayPal usually lower | PayPal carries higher-risk traffic and includes buyer-protection-flagged users. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
“Success rate dropped 3pp overnight, what to check?” In order: (1)viv_top_decline_reasons for the dominant reason code (sudden cluster of DO_NOT_HONOR from one BIN range = issuer-side fraud filter triggered); (2) Viva status page for incidents; (3) recent merchant-side changes (new fraud rule, 3DS configuration, payment-form JS deploy); (4) channel mix (did online share grow vs POS, dragging blended rate down); (5) traffic source (a campaign sending high-risk buyers).
“What’s a good success rate for EU stores?”
Online-only: 90 to 95% is healthy, above 95% is excellent (often network-token-backed recurring), below 88% needs investigation. POS-only: 98 to 99.5%. Blended depends on mix; 92 to 96% is typical for Mediterranean SMBs running both.
“Smart Retry, does it lift this number retroactively?”
Yes. A failed rebill counts as E initially. When Smart Retry succeeds 1 to 7 days later, the new attempt is F and the success rate computation includes both the original failure and the eventual success. The retried success counts in the numerator and denominator, lifting the rate compared to a no-retry baseline.
“Why does Viva often beat Stripe on success rate for Greek issuers?”
Domestic routing. Viva connects directly to Greek and Cyprus issuing banks; Stripe usually routes via a non-Greek acquirer for those issuers, which adds an extra hop and 1 to 3pp of issuer rejection. Same logic applies in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Romania to varying degrees.
“3DS exemption strategy, how does it affect success rate?”
Properly configured exemptions (low-value, MIT, recurring, trusted-merchant) skip 3DS entirely on those flows, eliminating the abandon-on-challenge cost and lifting blended success. Misconfigured exemptions (claiming when not eligible) result in 3DS_REQUIRED issuer pushback, dragging the rate down. Audit your exemption claims quarterly.
“PSD2 SCA, what’s the impact?”
SCA forces 3DS challenges on EEA card-not-present payments above EUR 30 unless an exemption applies. The structural floor for EU CNP success rate is therefore around 88 to 92%; above that requires either strong frictionless rate (good risk data feed) or aggressive exemption use.
“My JP Morgan acquisition concerns, did anything change here?”
No. Viva risk engine, issuer-routing relationships, and 3DS handling are unchanged post-acquisition.
“PSP comparison, can I A/B test Viva vs Stripe on the same traffic?”
Yes, via dynamic-routing tools or by splitting checkout method-of-payment options. Most multi-PSP merchants find 1 to 3pp difference by issuer-region. The split usually doesn’t justify the complexity unless volume is large.