The decline rate on Ramp virtual cards jumped from 3% to 4.5% in one week. How would you find the root cause?

Introduction

Ramp virtual cards are the backbone of software and vendor spend for many customers: finance issues a card locked to a merchant, with a limit and an expiry, and subscriptions run on it month after month. A decline is costly. A failed SaaS renewal can lock a team out of a tool, and a declined ad payment can pause a marketing campaign. In this scenario, the decline rate on Ramp virtual cards has risen from about 3% to 4.5% of authorization attempts over one week. The task is to find the root cause.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (3 minutes)

• Looking at the definition, is the decline rate measured as declined authorizations divided by total authorization attempts, and does it include retries? I'll assume it counts every attempt, so retries could inflate it.

• Considering timing, did the increase happen suddenly on a specific day or gradually through the week? I'll assume it jumped sharply on a Tuesday and stayed elevated.

• Thinking about recent changes, were there any releases to card controls, the authorization engine, fraud models, or limit logic in the last two weeks? I'll ask for the change log.

• Considering scope, is the increase concentrated in virtual cards only, or are physical cards also affected? I'll assume physical cards are flat, which already points away from network-wide issues.