If you’re a business owner, chances are you’ve been made aware of strong customer authentication (SCA). It’s about to become an important part of how you do business, so if you haven’t heard of it already, it’s vital to get up to speed so you don’t get lost in the dust and lose business.
Strong customer authentication is a new European regulatory requirement that will force merchants to have two different ways to verify a customer’s identity. The new regulation will go into effect on September 14, 2019, so there’s not much time left to get on board.
If your business accepts online payments, you’ll be required to have two independent authentication methods to verify that people are who they say they are. This safeguard will be in place to protect customers and businesses from fraud.
If a customer isn’t trying to make a fraudulent transaction, the authentication process should be easy because they’ll be able to provide whatever you ask for. The types of authentication accepted include:
This means that the customer will have to either provide a password they have, be able to provide a verification code sent to another device such as a mobile phone and be able to use a physical identifier like a fingerprint. Any two of these types of authenticators will be sufficient to verify someone is who they say they are.
Most of the SCA process will be done through a 3D Secure 2, which is just an update to the current 3D Secure System. The payment gateway will prompt the customer to provide two of the authentication forms to complete their transaction. If they are unable to do so, they won’t be able to complete their transaction. This may also be a red flag that the person was trying to make a fraudulent transaction.
Systems like Apple Pay or Google Pay already support transactions with a built-in later of authentication either by a biometric or password form. If businesses implement these types of payments, it can be an easy way to comply with the SCA requirement without having to make any changes.
There are several important things to know about SCA before it goes into effect.
Did you know…?
The biggest takeaway with strong customer authentication is that it is being put in place to prevent fraudulent transactions. Fraudulent transactions are not only a headache for business owners, but also for customers who often experience their accounts being suspended as the transactions are investigated.
SCA is not meant to be a headache. It should be viewed as a welcomed extra line of security when it comes to protecting payments. As a business owner, you want all of your transactions to go smoothly and SCA is one way to make sure that gets done.
If you don’t have the proper payment gateways in place, it’s vital to get that done so that you don’t experience an interruption in your business or any unnecessary headaches.
If you want to make sure your website is SCA compliant, let Portside Marketing help. We will not only design and update your website, but will also make sure you have the right payment gateways in place for the upcoming SCA regulation. Portside Marketing can also help when it comes to other tasks like search engine optimization and local and directory searches. We are a full-service marketing agency equipped with experienced staff that can get the job done.
Contact us today at (972) 979-9316 to get started. Find out why so many companies trust Portside Marketing for all of their marketing needs!