Partial Approval

Partial Approval involves a transaction with a pre-paid credit card and a balance due. The terminal can approve a Purchase using a pre-paid credit card for an amount that is less than the total purchase amount due.  

Partial Approval is supported by the following issuers:

Pre-paid Credit Cards

Pre-paid credit cards are sometimes referred to as "gift cards", but for the purposes of clarity, this document will refer to them as pre-paid credit cards. These cards are loaded with a pre-defined value that can be used during a Purchase transaction to pay for all or part of the transaction.

Pre-paid credit cards are issued by the following issuers:

Partial Approval Purchase Transactions

Partial Approval Purchase transactions behave similarly to a regular swiped credit card Purchase transaction. However, they can differ, depending upon if you are performing the transaction on a stand-alone terminal, or on a terminal with the external PINpad.

Learn more about:

Partial Approval Correction Transactions

As with other regular credit and debit transactions, it is possible to perform corrections on Partial Approval Purchase and Refund Transactions:

Partial Approval Receipt Examples

Refer to the Partial Approval Receipts topic to view illustrations of the different receipts for the different transactions involving Partial Approval.

Partial Approval Transaction Scenarios

Refer to the Partial Approval Transaction Scenarios topic to review some practical examples of how different cards are used in the various Partial Approval transactions.

Balance Inquiries

It is possible to perform a balance inquiry on pre-paid credit cards.