The Continued Impact of “Stop All Recurring” Declines

In November 2022, Visa announced a new subscription manager service that would allow cardholders to block all future recurring payments to a subscription merchant directly through their issuing bank—without having to contact the merchant. Since then, as issuers roll out this functionality, it has caused a fundamental shift in the relationship between merchants and the customers they sell subscriptions to by essentially removing a merchant’s ability to win back customers at the point of cancellation.

We first explored this shift last Spring in our blog post titled Payments in a Subscription Economy. In it, we explored how tools like Visa Stop Payment Service, Rocket Money, and Minna Technologies have empowered customers to manage their subscriptions more easily. But now, nearly a year later, how has this change actually played out across different markets? Let’s look at the data.

Regional Trends in Stop All Recurring Declines

Looking at Visa card transaction data for a few key regional cohorts of Pagos customers in 2024, we’ve tracked how frequently the stop_all_recurring decline appears as a percentage of all recurring transactions: 

While this percentage remains small (less than 1%, but growing), more issuers are starting to implement it in more markets and the trends are striking:

• In the Americas and Asia, instances of this decline code surged, with some businesses seeing up to a 3x increase over the course of the year, particularly in the final quarter

• In Oceana, we’re not seeing any changes at this point, indicating this new subscription cancellation option hasn’t been adopted yet

What This Means for Your Business

If you’re a subscription-based business, the stop_all_recurring decline code can have any or all of the following impacts on your operations:

• Lost opportunities to retain customers – Since cancellations happen outside your flow, you lose the ability to offer retention incentives or request customer feedback on their reason for cancellation

• Potentially permanent blocking of cards – Once this decline is triggered, the same card often can’t be used to re-subscribe, even if the customer later changes their mind

• Market-specific differences – Depending on where your customers are, you may see vastly different trends, requiring region-specific strategies (this is why deep data dives into individual segments of your business are important)

How Peacock by Pagos Can Help

Understanding when and where stop_all_recurring declines happen is the first step toward responding effectively. Peacock by Pagos, our data visualization platform, makes it easy to:

• Track your stop_all_recurring decline rates over time

• Compare trends across different processors, payment methods, and issuing banks

• Identify whether a particular region, BIN, or card brand is driving your numbers up

• Measure the impact of any adjustments or A/B test you implement in response

With real-time insights from Peacock, you can stay ahead of these trends and take action before they start cutting into your revenue. As with most changes in the payments world, if you’re not vigilant, you won’t know what’s happening or how it’s impacting your business until it’s too late. Only with full data visibility of your entire payments stack—like the kind Pagos provides—can you optimize your response to every regulation change and new technology introduced in the processing sector.

Want to see how stop_all_recurring declines are affecting your business? Get in touch with us today!