MP208 'Northbound Prioritisation of N56 Alerts'

When a consumer requests a Prepayment top up at a shop, the request is sent via the Responsible Supplier to the Data Communications Company (DCC). The DCC responds by sending an N56 Alert, which contains the Unique Transaction Reference Number (UTRN) required to process the consumer’s payment.
If the UTRN is not returned to the shop within 30 seconds of the initial request, the transaction will time out and the consumer’s funds may be held by the Payment Service Provider (PSP) until a refund is processed. The DCC is aware that while the majority of Prepayment top up requests are processed and N56 Alerts returned to the Supplier within the necessary timeframe of 16 seconds, there are instances where this part of the process is taking too long.

The Proposed Solution is to introduce a method of prioritisation in the Northbound message pathway (from the Data Service Provider (DSP) to the Supplier) so that N56 Alerts are processed ahead of other, less urgent, System messages.
The proposed changes to the SEC drafting will not mandate which messages should be ‘high priority’, but will set out the process by which priority levels should be decided and implemented. This is to future-proof the solution in case other messages are identified as requiring prioritisation.