About Payment Authorization Expertise
Payment Authorization Expertise (PAE) is a specialist consultancy focused exclusively on making card transactions work. We bridge the gap between complex network standards and real-world performance, ensuring payment systems are not only compliant but also fully optimized for success.
Chris Balfour, Founder
After many years at the heart of the global payments industry with Visa, Chris Balfour founded PAE to provide financial institutions, processors, and fintech firms with deep, specialized expertise. His work at Visa included thousands of client authorization troubleshooting cases, alongside proactive programs to optimize systems so clients used the right tools and services in the best way.
How We Work
PAE's approach is outcomes focused and pragmatic. The goal is not to produce binders of best practices, but to define concrete changes your teams can implement, and to link those changes to higher approval rates, fewer false declines, and fewer operational escalations.
Every engagement is grounded in production reality: real messages, real declines, real latency, and the constraints of existing systems. PAE fits into your current risk, authorization, and operations structures instead of trying to reorganize them.