Card networks introduced stricter refund checks in spring 2025, which means card refunds may fail if the original card is no longer valid or has expired. To ensure refunds can still be completed, Paytrail offers email refunds for card payments and Click to Pay payments. This change does not affect Apple Pay, Google Pay, MobilePay, or bank payment refunds.
Do not initiate an email refund if you suspect misuse or if Paytrail has informed you of possible misuse. In these cases, requesting bank account details could result in funds being paid to the wrong party. Please contact us to report suspected misuse.
How email refunds work
An email refund is used when a refund to the original card fails because the card is no longer valid, has expired, or is otherwise unavailable. Instead of stopping the refund process, the refund can be completed directly to the customer’s bank account.
In the Merchant panel
- Sign in to the Merchant panel.
- From the left-hand menu, select Payments.
- Use the search options to locate the payment you want to refund. See payments search for details on the available search options.
- From the Latest payments list, select the payment to open its details.
- Scroll to the Order content and refunds section and enter the refund amount.
- You can issue a full or partial refund.
- The comment field is for your own notes and is not shown to the customer.
- Click Refund.
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If the refund cannot be completed to the card, an error message is shown.
Do not continue if you suspect misuse or have been informed of possible misuse.
- Enter the refund amount again and add a comment if needed. The email address field is prefilled if the customer’s email address was included in the payment details. If not, enter the customer’s email address.
- Click Refund to complete the email refund.
The customer receives an email, provides their bank account number, completes strong authentication, and the refund is paid to their bank account.
Via the API
If a card refund fails through the API, the refund is automatically converted into an email refund without additional action from the merchant. However if the email address is not sent with the request, the refund will fail. Send the refund request again but this time with the email address, or follow the instructions above to process the refund in the Merchant panel.