Table describing the subfields of ISO 8583 field 60, the advice reason code

F60-ADVICE REASON CODE: Used to indicate the specific purpose of an advice/reversal message. It is 60 characters long.

PositionUsageLength
1-3Subfield  1:  Advice Reason Code
Mandatory in all advice messages. Contains the general purpose of the advice message.		3 bytes
4-7Subfield  2:  Advice Detail Code
May be conditionally mandatory; provides additional information about the exact nature of the advice message.		4 bytes
8-60Subfield  3:  Advice Detail Text
Optional, and may contain additional textual information related to the advice detail code.		53 bytes

What is an advice message?

Advice messages are sent to inform the other party about a transaction that has already taken place. Unlike request messages, no approval is requested from the other party - it is purely informational. For example, if a transaction is approved offline by the terminal because it could not reach the bank, the transaction is later reported to the bank via an advice message.

Why is the advice reason code needed?

An advice or reversal message can be sent for various reasons. The issuing bank needs to know why the message was sent in order to process it correctly. The code in F60 indicates this reason. For example, the following situations are processed differently:

  • The transaction was approved offline
  • The transaction was approved by another system while the bank could not be reached
  • The transaction was cancelled because the response message did not reach the terminal
  • Amount correction for partial-amount transactions

Use of the subfields

As shown in the table above, the first subfield indicates the general purpose of the advice, while the second subfield specifies its detail. The third subfield is for an optional description text and is generally useful when investigating issues.

Note

The structure described in this article belongs to the Mastercard specification. F60 is a field that can be used for different purposes on different networks. Therefore, the relevant network's specification should be taken as the reference.