SCA Optimisation

As a leading provider of digital identity, fraud prevention, chargeback management, and payment gateway solutions Accertify, (a wholly owned subsidiary of American Express) offers one-stop support for clients’ SCA products, while helping maximise sales in the post SCA landscape.

SCA Optimisation is a real-time PSD2 decision engine that facilitates strong customer authentication (SCA) so you can ensure regulatory compliance while taking advantage of SCA exemptions to deliver a positive check-out experience.

SCA Optimisation is fully-customizable and offers real-time reporting and machine learning capabilities that quickly adapt to emerging fraud trends to help you ensure your business is protected at all times. We also provide a scheme-agnostic 3DS authentication solution that only requires a single certification to support all major credit cards.

The Payments Services Directive (PSD2), which includes Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), is a European regulation making payments more secure. SCA requires 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) on all in-scope, non-exempt, remote payments. Enforced in Europe in January 2021, all e-commerce merchants needed to adapt and modify their fraud strategy to comply. Prior to this, European merchants had a large amount of control as to when a 3D Secure step-up event would take place, allowing them to manage the customer experience (and risk) themselves to maximise sales conversion.

Accertify supports clients’ SCA compliance efforts, while helping maximise sales in the post SCA landscape. Accertify’s innovative SCA Optimisation is a real-time decision engine providing clients’ ability to utilise SCA exemptions to deliver a positive customer checkout experience, maximising revenue. SCA Optimisation’s fraud element is fully configurable, offering real-time reporting and cutting-edge machine learning capabilities.

Research commissioned in December 2020/January 2021 by Accertify, conducted by Arizent Research/ PaymentsSource, found that more than one-third (37%) of merchants surveyed revealed their sales had decreased due to SCA enforcement, reporting they had seen added customer checkout friction (41%) and increased cart abandonment rates (38%).1

Accertify’s innovative SCA Optimisation is a real-time PSD2 decision engine with a fully configurable fraud element offering real-time reporting and cutting-edge machine learning capabilities that adapt to emerging fraud trends to help protect businesses at all times.

• Provides end- to-end protection across channels. • Facilitates strong SCA. • Identifies low risk payments at pre-authentication stage to facilitate a seamless checkout experience. • Performs checks against both scope and exemptions criteria leveraging SCA exemptions selected by client, including Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) e.g., low value/low risk to inform the merchant’s decisioning process and enabling a secure, yet frictionless, customer checkout experience.

Accertify’s response includes a recommendation on how to best route an exemption request, profiling each issuer BIN to monitor their soft decline thresholds and, the merchant’s preferred acquirer for that transaction, based on TRA thresholds and acquirer preferences.

Logic-based rules combined with cutting-edge machine learning fraud screening capabilities, means that our solution constantly improves to stay ahead of the shifting threat environment.

Showroomprivé needed guidance, and the capabilities to navigate the requirements of SCA that were coming into force and therefore required the assistance of Accertify.

Accertify started to work with Showroomprivé on SCA / 2FA in 2020, looking at the best strategic approach to minimise customer friction rate. For a few months Showroomprivé was placed into “silent mode”, while more nuanced research was carried out, transactions were checked, and work undertaken with Showroomprivé providers. Different approaches were developed over this period, and the solution reconstructed to ensure it achieved Showroomprivé objectives and best value.

A roll out plan was agreed and Accertify began working with Showroomprivé on SCA / 2FA in January 2021, finally going live in April 2021. In addition to this process of implementation, Accertify tested the solution with Showroomprivé employees to collect user feedback and ensure the solution was meeting objectives.

Ultimately, merchants that partner with payment services providers/ acquirers and vendors to manage SCA are more likely to see themselves as effective at reducing both customer friction and fraud risk. Considering a partnership with a PSP/acquirer or vendor could offer merchants an opportunity to better manage the complexity of these new regulations without sacrificing customer security or the customer experience.2

According to a survey commissioned by Accertify and conducted by Arizent Research/PaymentsSource, nearly 60% of merchants worry about the cost and resources required for SCA compliance, and 38% find the SCA rules unclear or confusing.3

Accertify supported one of Europe’s biggest ecommerce companies Showroomprivé in a highly successful SCA transition. Within one month, Accertify’s innovative SCA Optimisation solution, gave 90% of customers a seamless checkout experience, increased authorisation approval to 1.5% and cut Account Takeover Fraud by 33%.**

Accertify’s SCA solution has helped Showroomprivé increase their sales conversion rates* across channels including 6% for desktop with the largest increase being on the mobile browser journey at 8%.

*Conversion rate: % of sessions reaching the order confirmation page, after the payment page.

**All figures based on Consumer data provided by Showroomprivé

1. Source: Arzient Research/ PaymentsSource December 2020/January 2021
2. The impact of SCA Enforcement on Merchants:PaymementSource
3. Source: Arzient Research/ PaymentsSource December 2020/January 2021

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