“Card payment failed,” “payment declined,” “Declined” — these messages can sometimes appear at the payment step when you pay for a transfer by card in SendNOW. Why it happens and what you can do to get the payment through — explained below.
If you pay by card (Visa/Mastercard) in SendNOW and the payment is declined, the issue is usually not with the transfer itself, but with payment processing: your bank, the card network, or the payment provider may reject the transaction based on their rules.
Why a decline or error can happen
A card payment involves several parties. When a payment is declined, the problem usually occurs at one link in this chain — where the transaction is checked and processed. The most common reasons are:
- Your card’s bank / card network — may decline a payment if the merchant or transaction type looks unusual to them. When two systems interact, their rules and settings may not match — that’s why the same payment can go through with one bank/network and fail with another, even if it used to work before. The bank may also require additional confirmation (e.g., 3D Secure) or block the payment due to limits;
- Acquirer / processing (merchant acquiring) — may reject the payment due to technical checks, configuration, or mismatches in transaction data;
- Guardarian / Volet — may decline a payment based on their own rules and risk checks, or may not receive confirmation from the payment side;
- Visa / Mastercard — rarely, but delays or technical issues in request routing can happen;
- Card/account currency — the payment may be declined if your card is tied to one currency while the payment is requested in another. In such cases, the bank should perform automatic conversion, but for some transactions it may fail;
- Country of the issuing bank / card system — the payment may be declined if the bank or card system that issued the card is registered in a country that isn’t supported for card-funded transfers. Important: it’s the country of the issuing bank/card system that matters, not your current location or citizenship.
On SendNOW’s side, a card payment is not “approved” or “declined” by SendNOW: SendNOW receives the result from the payment chain. If there is no payment confirmation, the transfer cannot move to the next step.
What to do if your card payment is declined
Start by checking these two points first (this saves time):
1) Country of the issuing bank / card system.
Sometimes card-funded transfers are not available for cards issued in certain countries. The list of such countries is provided in a separate article.
2) Card currency vs. payment currency.
In SendNOW you choose the payment currency from a list when creating the transfer. The payment may be declined if your card/account currency is different and automatic conversion doesn’t work.
Important: not all cards are multi-currency — sometimes a card is tied to a single currency, even if your bank shows balances in several currencies.
If both points are fine, try the options below.
3) Choose a different payment provider. If the payment didn’t go through via Guardarian, try selecting Volet as the payment provider for the transfer. This is normal: different providers use different routes, and a decline with one doesn’t automatically mean a decline with another.
4) Pay with Google Pay or Apple Pay
This option works only when paying via Guardarian.
If your card is already added to Google Pay / Apple Pay: simply choose Google Pay or Apple Pay as the payment method at the payment-method step on the Guardarian page.
If your card is not added: add it to Google Pay or Apple Pay first, then return to the payment step and select the relevant method.
Why this can help: with Google Pay / Apple Pay, the bank receives the request in a different format and with additional “payment wrapping.” Sometimes these payments succeed where direct card payments are declined — including with virtual cards or in cases where the site/provider doesn’t accept direct card payments.
Support is here
If the payment is still declined, or if anything in this article is unclear — message SendNOW support in the in-app chat. We’ll advise you on the best next step for your situation.
To help us assist you faster, please include:
- Transfer method (card / bank account);
- Payment provider (Guardarian or Volet);
- Payment currency selected when creating the transfer;
- Pountry of the issuing bank/card system.
Sometimes there’s a solution that depends on a specific bank or payment setup and isn’t covered in this article — support can identify it for your case.