Most MVNO operators don’t think about payment processing until something goes wrong. By then, it’s usually costing them—in lost revenue, frozen accounts, or frustrated customers who can’t complete transactions.
The truth is, your payment processor can either be a silent growth partner or a hidden liability. Here are four common traps that catch MVNOs off guard, and what to look for instead.
Trap #1: Low approval rates
You’re processing transactions. Most go through. Everything seems fine—until you realize “fine” is quietly costing you millions.
If your processor only connects to one underlying acquirer (the bank that actually processes the card), you’re stuck with whatever approval decision that bank makes. They’d rather decline ten legitimate customers than approve one potentially risky transaction. It’s safer for them. But every declined legitimate customer is lost revenue for you.
What to look for: A processor with multiple acquirer connections who understands telecom-specific payment patterns. When one acquirer declines a transaction, the payment can be intelligently routed to another acquirer who might approve it. More paths to approval mean more revenue captured.
Trap #2: The account freeze
Picture this: Your marketing team launches a successful promotion. Transaction volume spikes—exactly what you wanted. But your processor sees “unusual activity” and freezes your account pending investigation.
Suddenly your biggest win becomes your biggest crisis. Customers can’t pay. Revenue stops. Your support team is overwhelmed. All because your processor’s fraud detection system wasn’t built for telecom’s natural volatility.
What to look for: A processor who expects—and can handle—transaction spikes without panicking. Promotional periods, seasonal changes, and new product launches are part of doing business in telecom. Your payment infrastructure should flex with your business, not fight against it.
Trap #3: The false fraud flag
A customer tops up their prepaid account at 2 a.m. Another adds three lines to a family plan with different shipping addresses. Someone traveling internationally suddenly has roaming charges.
To a generic payment processor built for e-commerce, these might look suspicious. To anyone who understands telecom, they’re completely normal subscriber behavior.
The problem: processors using one-size-fits-all fraud rules will flag legitimate telecom transactions as risky, leading to declines that cost you customers and revenue.
What to look for: A processor who can distinguish between actual fraud and normal telecom patterns. This requires telecom-specific data models, not recycled e-commerce rules. The difference shows up directly in your approval rates—and your bottom line.
Trap #4: The low rack rate illusion
A 2.9% processing rate, for example, might look attractive. It’s lower than your current rate, and switching seems like an easy win for your P&L.
But here’s what the low sticker price doesn’t show: approval rates, false decline costs, fraud protection quality, customer service responsiveness, or business continuity during high-volume periods.
When you calculate total cost of ownership, that “cheap” rate starts looking expensive. We’ve seen MVNOs paying effective rates above 10% once they factor in declined legitimate transactions, fraud chargebacks, and support costs—despite choosing the processor with the lowest advertised fee.
What to look for: Calculate the full picture. For a 100,000-subscriber MVNO, a 1% improvement in approval rate generates roughly $300,000 in additional annual revenue. That dwarfs the savings from shaving 0.2% off your processing rate. Sometimes paying slightly more upfront saves massive money in the long run.
Where to look next
Payment processing in telecom isn’t the same as general e-commerce. Subscriber behavior is different. Fraud patterns are different. Business models are different. Using a payment processor that doesn’t understand these differences is expensive—you just might not see it on your invoice.
The right payment partner understands telecom patterns, has multiple paths to approval, can handle volume volatility, and aligns their success with yours. That alignment matters more than any line item on a pricing sheet.
Ask yourself:
- What’s our current approval rate?
- How many acquirer connections does our processor have?
- What happens to our account during high-volume periods?
- What’s our true cost per successful transaction?
If you don’t have good answers to these questions, it might be time to look more closely at what your payment processing is—or isn’t—doing for your business.
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