The Test Environment

You can use an installation's Test Environment at any time, even when your site has gone live. The live and test environments run in parallel as independent systems.

You should note that both environments operate at the individual order level rather than at a session level. In other words, you submit details of individual orders to the environment rather than instructions to start a test session for a series of orders.

Real or Dummy Cards

You can use real card details in the Test Environment - no money is actually transferred when you submit transactions in the Test Environment. However, if you prefer to use dummy test card details, please refer to the list in Test Card Numbers below.

You must be especially careful about submitting test transactions once you are live. If you submit order details to the live, Production Environment our systems will attempt to debit accounts.

Reversing transactions such as these, and adjusting accounts, will cause additional work for us as well as yourself and processing charges cannot be refunded. For this reason you should test with low value transactions where possible.

To submit order details to the Test Environment in an HTML form you need to specify the Test Environment URL as follows:

Specify a Result

You should also instruct the Test Environment how to respond to a transaction. To do this, specify the test result you want by using an appropriate value in the shopper's name parameter, valid values are shown in the table Test Result Values below.

For example:

If you do not specify one of the values shown in the table below, the system will assume you want an AUTHORISED response. For example, if you entered a real name, such as John Smith, the system would reply with an AUTHORISED response.

Note that you can also enter a test result value directly into the Name field when a Payment Page is being displayed.

Test Result Values

Use the shopper name parameter in the order details submission to specify the result value.

name value	system response
REFUSED	Will be equivalent to a refused transaction at the bank.
AUTHORISED	Will be equivalent to a successful authorisation at the bank, but no funds transferred.
ERROR	Will be equivalent to a payment that ends in error.
CAPTURED	Will be equivalent to a successful capture result - where funds are ready to be transferred (settled) to the merchant's account. However, note that CAPTURED does not force a test transaction to be captured - the transaction will initially show AUTHORISED in the MAI (Order and Payment Details) - it will eventually become CAPTURED according to the Capture Delay settings.

Test Card Numbers

The following card numbers can be used when you make test transactions in test environments only - do not use them in live, production environments:

card type	card number	number length	issue no length
Mastercard	5100080000000000	16	0
Visa Delta - UK	4406080400000000	16	0
Visa Delta - Non UK	4462030000000000	16	0
Visa	4911830000000	13	0
Visa	4917610000000000	16	0
American Express	370000200000000	15	0
Diners	36700102000000	14	0
JCB	3528000700000000	16	0
Visa Electron (UK only)	4917300800000000	16	0
Solo	6334580500000000	16	0
Solo	633473060000000000	18	1
Discover Card	6011000400000000	16	0
Laser	630495060000000000	18	0
Maestro (UK only)	6759649826438453	16	0
Visa Purchasing	4484070000000000	16	0

Note that Visa Purchasing transactions are treated as Visa credit card transactions.

German ELV

To test German ELV payments in the test environment a correctly formatted account number (Kontonummer) and valid bank code (Bankleitzahl) should be used, for example:

Account number: 12345678
Bank code: 10000000
Bank name: Bundesbank
Bank residence: Berlin

card type	bank code	account number
ELV	20030000	92441196
ELV	43050001	122108525
ELV	30070024	5929120

Please note that ELV must be activated in the production environment for merchants who would like to test ELV transactions.