Key takeaway: Merchants relying on manual fraud rules are far less likely to reach a 97%+ approval rate than those using orchestration and AI-based screening, according to PYMNTS Intelligence’s August 2026 research.
More than half of U.S. consumers say a legitimate payment was wrongly rejected in just the past three months. In addition, merchants relying on manual fraud screening are far less likely to achieve strong approval rates than those using automated tools, according to new PYMNTS Intelligence research.
The finding comes from “The Performance Gap: Why Every Transaction Is a Growth Opportunity,” the August edition of PYMNTS’ Optimizing Payments Tracker series, published September 2, 2026. The report found that 56% of U.S. consumers experienced a false payment decline within a three-month window, and 42% abandoned their shopping cart entirely after a failed payment attempt.
The gap between manual and automated fraud screening was stark. Companies using core payment orchestration tools achieved approval rates above 97% in 69% of cases. Firms relying on manual routing hit that same approval bar only 32% of the time, per the report, meaning manual-routing firms are far less likely to reach that high-approval tier, not that their overall approval rate is roughly half as high. Orchestration was also linked to processing-fee reductions of up to 30%.
PYMNTS also cited Mastercard research showing 83% of respondents said AI-based tools meaningfully cut false positives and reduced customer churn over the past year. Separately, the report found 42% of issuers and 26% of acquirers used AI-powered detection to block more than $5 million in attempted fraud over a two-year period.
Why it matters: False declines cost merchants real revenue twice over, first the lost sale, then the customer who does not come back after being wrongly rejected at checkout. For merchants weighing an investment in orchestration or AI-based risk tools, this report gives a concrete benchmark: automated screening more than doubles a company’s odds of hitting a 97%+ approval rate compared with manual routing, a gap that’s difficult to ignore.
Source: PYMNTS