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Cycling club raising funds for youth bike maintenance workshops and 'go slow' inclusivity initiative

21 Nov 2024

A local cycling club is raising money and seeking donations and assistance in order to teach bike maintenance to young people through a series of workshops in 2025.
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Bira meets with Treasury members to discuss Budget concerns and business rate reform proposal

17 Nov 2024

Bira has held a meeting with members of the Treasury team to discuss concerns following its robust response to the Government’s recent Budget announcement.
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ACT teams up with Saledock to supercharge bike shop efficiency and customer experience

14 Nov 2024

The ACT has announced a dynamic partnership with Saledock - an all-in-one POS, eCommerce, and inventory management platform tailor-made for bike shops and workshops.
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'Devastating and out of touch' - independent retailers react to Budget bombshell

1 Nov 2024

Independent retailers across Britain have reacted with dismay to yesterday's Budget, with many warning of store closures, job losses and cancelled expansion plans.
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Devastating Budget Delivers Triple Blow to Independent Retailers, Says ACT and Bira

30 Oct 2024

The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) and the ACT have condemned today's Budget as the most damaging for independent retailers in recent memory, with... Read more…

Retailers paying one-third of all UK business rates despite making up only 9% of economy

30 Oct 2024

Retailers and hospitality businesses are paying three times their economic share in business rates, according to analysis by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and UK Hospitality.
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How much cash do you still accept? Independent cycling retailers can respond to this survey today

30 Oct 2024

ACT parent company Bira is working with UK Finance and other organisations who form the UK’s wholesale cash industry to gain vital information to ensure businesses get the best possible... Read more…

Bira Conference a huge success with ACT members in attendance

25 Oct 2024

ACT members were in attendance at the hugely successful Bira Conference in London last week, featuring an inspiring line-up of speakers providing valuable insights from independent retail... Read more…

Bira cautiously welcomes retail sales growth but calls for continued support

11 Oct 2024

ACT parent company Bira has responded to the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor for September 2024
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FSB launches blueprint to revitalise UK high streets and boost tourism

3 Oct 2024

The Federation of Small Businesses has launched a new initiative, which it says aims to transform high streets across the UK, by advancing economic, social, and cultural benefits, while also... Read more…

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Have you prepared for the implementation of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)?

Posted on in Business News, Cycles News, Political News

As online and digital payments have continued to grow in popularity over the past few years, unfortunately so does the risk of fraud. SCA intends to combat this risk by providing a more secure trading environment for businesses and their customers.

To do so, a transaction must meet two out of three authentication measures, commonly referred to as multi-factor authentication, from the following categories:

  1. Biometric—such as a fingerprint or voice recognition.
  2. Knowledge—something like a unique passphrase or identification number.
  3. Possess—uses the mobile device registered with the issuing bank or a hardware token.


Businesses attempting to process transactions that have not been successfully authenticated after the enforcement date will start to see declines from issuing banks.

Not only will this negatively impact your customers' experience, it could also drive additional purchase abandonment.

 

SCA preparation checklist

The deadline for enforcement was 14th March, retailers who have not met this deadline can face various fines and penalties. Taking the following steps as soon as possible will help you avoid any negative impacts:

1. Review your approach to payments

SCA covers both customer present and not present payment scenarios. Complete a check of how you're currently accepting payments and through which channels to ensure you're meeting new compliance requirements.

There are a number of scenarios such as Merchant Initiated Transactions (MIT) and Mail Order / Telephone Order (MOTO) which fall out of scope from SCA. Although these do not require SCA, it's important to configure these payment requests correctly to avoid unnecessary declines and mitigate risk fraud.

2. Check your ecommerce implementation

Ecommerce transactions will largely be impacted by SCA. With exponential growth in online payments, especially mobile and app-based transactions, delivering the right authentication experience can deliver strong conversion rates.

For Customer Initiated Transactions (CIT), implement 3DS v2.2 which is the latest version to manage customer authentications as part of your payment journey.

Although 3DS v1 meets the minimum requirements for SCA compliance, 3DS v2.2 provides better user experiences for authentication (especially for mobile commerce), richer data sets for issuers to make an authentication decision and enables the use of exemptions as outlined within the SCA regulations.

These linked together give you the best chance to remove friction from your customers' payment journey and maximise authorisation rates.

3. Check your hardware for face-to-face transactions

You'll need to check if your hardware is up to date.

4. Keep your staff and customers informed

Whether you take payments face to face, over the phone or online, be sure to keep your staff and customers informed of changes to payment regulations.

Most customers are familiar with contactless transactions. Issuers may require chip-and-pin authentication in situations where your customer exceeds a certain number of contactless transactions or reaches a certain spend threshold without prior authentication. This will all be tracked by the cardholder's issuer, so you don't have to make any changes.

It's important to reassure your customer that when chip-and-pin authentication is required for contactless transactions, extra checks are being completed for their protection.

Similarly for ecommerce transactions, flagging authentication requirements reassures customers that extra steps are being taken to protect their online purchase.

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