What is a cancelled payment?¶

A cancelled payment is an instruction stopped before the provider's final completed state. Cancellation preserves evidence of the intended transaction and creates its own event.

Cancellation can occur at different stages¶

A customer may stop a schedule before execution, a merchant may cancel before completion, or a provider may act because of risk, restrictions, duplication or failure. The label may mean pre-authorisation in one system and post-authorisation but pre-settlement in another.

The record can still show creator, account, endpoint, intended destination, amount, time and reference. A separate user, merchant or system action may identify who stopped it.

Establish what was stopped¶

Preserve original and cancellation details, both times, references, status and reason codes and notifications. Ask the provider which stage had been reached, whether funds were reserved or received and who initiated cancellation.

Do not report completion, but do not dismiss an attempted movement or unauthorised access merely because it was stopped.