A new industry-wide regulation will come into affect in September 2019, which will affect all European online businesses that accept credit cards.

Starting 14th September, the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) European regulation will come into force, designed to reduce fraud and make online card payments more secure.

When it comes into effect, all online card payments, where both the business and the cardholder’s bank are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), will require SCA.

Card transactions that don’t meet the new regulations are likely to be declined.

The impact is significant. The value of European online card transactions is expected to reach €650 billion in 2019. Worryingly, only 44% of affected businesses believe they will be ready for the new regulation by the deadline, which analysts believe will result in an expected loss in economic activity of €57 billion.

Online businesses will need to redesign some of their payment flows, particularly when their customers subscribe to online services using a card. Presently, businesses can store card details (via a card processor) and subsequently charge recurring fees to the card. From September, banks may begin to reject such “off session” payments, where the customer is not present.

In these cases, the payment flow will need to change in order to bring the customer back “on session” and make it possible for them to authenticate the transaction, via 3D Secure v2.

How is SCA impacting your business? Will you be ready for the September 14th deadline?

 

Simon Bates is CEO of Workteam, an OKR-based Goal Management System for businesses of all sizes with a focus on growing employee engagement. Visit http://workte.am to find out how it can benefit your organization.