Braintree sent out the following notice and I need to know if this has been handled.

As a reminder, we’re writing to tell you about a change to refund processing that we’re releasing on May 18, 2021.

What is changing?

The payments industry is moving to an authorization model for refund processing. Once this framework goes into effect, refunds will be preceded by authorizations to allow the card issuer to approve or decline before the refund is processed. Real-time processor response codes similar to those returned from sale authorizations will be provided in cases where a refund is declined. Refund authorizations will also appear on cardholder statements in real-time, to improve transparency.

The update ensures we meet new card brand rules introduced by Visa, MasterCard, and Discover in 2019.

Benefits for you

This model will increase transparency into the refund process for merchants and customers alike, including the following benefits:

Real-time refund approval responses
Reduction in refund-related disputes and chargebacks
Improved cardholder transparency
You can learn more about the benefits by reading through our Refund Authorizations guide.

Next Steps

Ahead of this change, we recommend working with your development team to upgrade to the latest SDK, testing the new workflow in Sandbox, and reading up on our guide to learn more about all the upcoming benefits. We’ve crafted several resources to get you started to make sure the model works seamlessly for you:

New SDK versions + GraphQL

In order to receive the most detailed information for declined refunds, merchants will need to use one of the SDK integrations released in 2020 (listed below) or GraphQL. This will ensure that when a refund is declined, you will see start to see decline codes from the 2000-class decline codes list.

Ruby 3.0 or newer
Python 4.0 or newer
Java 3.0.0 or newer
Node.js 3.0.0 or newer
PHP 5.0.0 or newer
.NET 5.0.0 or newer
Previous SDK versions

While merchants on older SDKs than those listed above will still be able to process, instead of getting a decline code for declined refunds, you will receive one of the following two validation errors:

Hard decline: 915200 - Failed to refund transaction.
Soft decline: 915201 - Failed to refund transaction. Please try again at a later time.
Note: Third Party Integrations

If you're using a third-party shopping cart to integrate with Braintree, your shopping cart provider should be making any necessary integration updates to be sure that you'll be able to see the processor responses. Please reach out to your provider for more information.