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Payment Essentials: Advanced

Person making a contactless payment with a credit card over a laptop, symbolizing digital transactions. Text overlay reads: ‘Advanced Tactics for Transaction Optimization. Created in Partnership with Checkout.com.’ The Checkout.com logo appears below the text.

The MRC Payment Essentials: Advanced eLearning course is designed for professionals ready to move beyond foundational knowledge and master the optimization of payment performance. This course focuses on the strategic and analytical aspects of payments, helping you improve authorization rates, reduce declines, and balance fraud prevention with conversion. Whether you're optimizing existing systems or scaling globally, this course delivers practical insights to drive measurable business outcomes.

 

Complimentary to MRC Members. Thanks to Checkout.com
Non-members: USD $450 (plus applicable taxes)   

Enroll | Members Enroll | Non-Members


By completing the course, you'll gain the ability to analyze and improve payment performance using key metrics, identify optimization opportunities across the payment lifecycle, and apply strategies that balance fraud prevention, approval rates, and customer experience. You'll also explore orchestration, routing strategies, and the complexities of global payments and regulatory environments.

FAQs

    • Mid-level payments professionals: Seeking to optimize payment performance and drive measurable business impact.
    • Fraud and risk professionals: Looking to better understand the tradeoffs between fraud prevention, approval rates, and customer experience.
    • eCommerce and payments leaders: Responsible for improving authorization, conversion, and global payment strategies.
    • Product, operations, and payments teams: Working with orchestration, routing, and multi-acquirer setups.
    • Mid-level payments professionals: Seeking to optimize payment performance and drive measurable business impact.
    • Fraud and risk professionals: Looking to better understand the tradeoffs between fraud prevention, approval rates, and customer experience.
    • eCommerce and payments leaders: Responsible for improving authorization, conversion, and global payment strategies.
    • Product, operations, and payments teams: Working with orchestration, routing, and multi-acquirer setups.
    • Define and analyze key payment performance metrics including authorization rate, decline rate, conversion rate, and fraud rate
    • Differentiate between soft and hard declines and apply appropriate retry strategies
    • Interpret the payment approval funnel to identify optimization opportunities
    • Identify common causes of payment declines and strategies to reduce them
    • Compare static vs dynamic retry logic and their impact on performance
    • Explain how network tokenization and account updater solutions improve authorization rates
    • Understand false positives and techniques to balance fraud prevention with conversion
    • Analyze the tradeoffs between fraud controls, approval rates, and customer experience
    • Explain Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and its impact on checkout and compliance
    • Identify key regulatory frameworks (e.g., PSD2, GDPR, data localization) and their impact on payments
    • Define payment orchestration and explain the role of orchestration platforms
    • Explain smart routing, failover, and multi-acquirer strategies
    • Differentiate between domestic, cross-border, and local acquiring strategies
    • Identify global payment method differences and localization requirements
    • Explain the role of alternative payment methods including A2A, open banking, digital wallets, and real-time payments
    • Apply a structured framework to analyze payment performance issues in real-world scenarios
    • Develop data-driven recommendations to improve authorization rates, reduce fraud, and optimize global payment strategies

    • Define and analyze key payment performance metrics including authorization rate, decline rate, conversion rate, and fraud rate
    • Differentiate between soft and hard declines and apply appropriate retry strategies
    • Interpret the payment approval funnel to identify optimization opportunities
    • Identify common causes of payment declines and strategies to reduce them
    • Compare static vs dynamic retry logic and their impact on performance
    • Explain how network tokenization and account updater solutions improve authorization rates
    • Understand false positives and techniques to balance fraud prevention with conversion
    • Analyze the tradeoffs between fraud controls, approval rates, and customer experience
    • Explain Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and its impact on checkout and compliance
    • Identify key regulatory frameworks (e.g., PSD2, GDPR, data localization) and their impact on payments
    • Define payment orchestration and explain the role of orchestration platforms
    • Explain smart routing, failover, and multi-acquirer strategies
    • Differentiate between domestic, cross-border, and local acquiring strategies
    • Identify global payment method differences and localization requirements
    • Explain the role of alternative payment methods including A2A, open banking, digital wallets, and real-time payments
    • Apply a structured framework to analyze payment performance issues in real-world scenarios
    • Develop data-driven recommendations to improve authorization rates, reduce fraud, and optimize global payment strategies

    • Program Level: Advanced
    • Program Field of Study: Payments, Specialized Knowledge
    • Program Delivery Method: QAS Self Study
    • CPE Credits: 3
    • Advanced Preparation and/or Pre-requisites: Payment Essentials: Fundamentals is recommended.

    Please allow approximately 2–3 hours to complete this course. The course culminates with a comprehensive final assessment to evaluate the user's comprehension of the material. Upon successfully completing the final assessment, participants will be awarded a certificate of completion representing their proficiency in the subject matter.

    • Program Level: Advanced
    • Program Field of Study: Payments, Specialized Knowledge
    • Program Delivery Method: QAS Self Study
    • CPE Credits: 3
    • Advanced Preparation and/or Pre-requisites: Payment Essentials: Fundamentals is recommended.

    Please allow approximately 2–3 hours to complete this course. The course culminates with a comprehensive final assessment to evaluate the user's comprehension of the material. Upon successfully completing the final assessment, participants will be awarded a certificate of completion representing their proficiency in the subject matter.

  • Refund Policy: Refunds and cancellations are determined on a case-by-case basis. Cancellations must be communicated in writing to programs@merchantriskcouncil.org. No refunds will be issued once a course has been started.
    Refund Policy: Refunds and cancellations are determined on a case-by-case basis. Cancellations must be communicated in writing to programs@merchantriskcouncil.org. No refunds will be issued once a course has been started.

MRC Education Accreditation

The Merchant Risk Council is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website: nasbaregistry.org

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MRC Education Refund Policy

MRC Education eLearning course refunds and cancellations are determined on a case-by-case basis. Cancellations and requests for refunds must be communicated in writing to programs@merchantriskcouncil.org. Refunds will not be issued once a course is started. Additionally, courses must be completed within one year of the course enrollment date.