This is a trade facing website. Visit the ACT's consumer site thecyclingexperts.co.uk for information and advice on cycling and find your local independent cycle retailer.

Search News

Results: 141-150 of 845


1 Jul 2024

ACT member e-Velo is to open a new store in the Royal Arcade in Norwich in July, selling a range of e-bikes from some of Europe's top brands.

1 Jul 2024

Bicycle manufacturers say they are optimistic about the bike industry’s growth prospects, anticipating a boost in sales – supported by a ‘positive impulse’ from the...

1 Jul 2024

Although London has some of the best cycling infrastructure in the UK it continues to lag behind European cities including The Hague and Paris, according to a new global survey.

1 Jul 2024

ACT partner V12 Retail Finance has been announced as the sponsor for the Retailers Category at the BikeBiz Awards 2024, in association with Push.

1 Jul 2024

Consumer confidence is up in the UK for the third month in a row, according to GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index.

24 Jun 2024

A cycle shop owner has criticised the police’s “abject apathy” towards bike theft after thieves attempted to break into his store for the second time in a year, on the same...

19 Jun 2024

Cytech-partner Activate Cycle Academy, which has specialist cycle maintenance training centres in Oxford, Guildford, Stafford and Darlington, will be exhibiting at this weekend’s York...

19 Jun 2024

Better Bike Social, a festival of cycling that will include a range of talks, workshops, and weekend rides, is coming to Brighton next month.

17 Jun 2024

Cycling enthusiasts in Shrewsbury and Warrington being treated to new cycle shops.

17 Jun 2024

Sustrans has released a manifesto in the lead-up to the General Election that lays out steps the future government needs to make to remove barriers to cycling and other forms of active travel.

Back to news menu

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.

Back to news menu

Useful links

If you have any other queries please contact us.