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3-D Secure

What is 3-D Secure?​

3-D Secure authentication is a fraud prevention protocol designed to prevent fraud in online card payments. It is recognized by major debit and credit card issuers, including Visa (Verified by Visa), Mastercard (as Mastercard SecureCode) and American Express (as American Express SafeKey).

The use of 3-D Secure is prescribed by the regulation on strong customer authentication in Europe.

How does 3-D Secure work?​

3-D Secure authentication offers additional protection through a secure password or a unique PIN that the customer enters on the 3-D Secure page to authenticate themselves.

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In an iFrame or Lightbox integration, the authentication step may take the customer out of the embedded form and back afterwards. Plan for that in your checkout flow.

What are the advantages of 3-D Secure?​

By using 3-D Secure, you protect both your company and your customers from card payment fraud.

In the event of a disputed payment (chargeback) or a fraudulent transaction that has been successfully authenticated by 3-D Secure, the liability is shifted from you, the merchant, to the card issuer.

The liability shift also applies if the card or the card issuer is not registered for 3-D Secure, but the card system supports 3-D Secure. In this case, the customer is not asked to authenticate themselves via 3-D Secure, but liability is still transferred to the card issuer.

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The liability shift is not an absolute guarantee. There are still cases where the customer may win the dispute, for example in the event of non-performance or fraud — there is no 100% guarantee that the money will never be refunded when paying with 3-D Secure. Recurring transactions are not covered by the liability shift.

How can I activate 3-D Secure?​

3-D Secure is configured per payment method, on the connector:

  1. Open the connector configuration list to see all your connectors (payment methods).
  2. Select the desired payment method and click Edit in the top right-hand corner.
  3. Navigate to the 3-D Secure section and adjust the settings.

You can configure a different 3-D Secure behaviour for each of your payment methods. You can either:

  • select whether 3-D Secure should be activated or not, or
  • enforce 3-D Secure, and in that case cancel transactions that do not pass 3-D Secure authentication.

In addition, transactions without liability shift can be marked so that you review them manually before delivering.

Conditional 3-D Secure​

You can configure additional conditions to control when 3-D Secure should be applied. For example, you can:

  • activate 3-D Secure based on the transaction amount, billing or shipping country, currency and similar properties,
  • deactivate 3-D Secure for returning customers.

This allows you to dynamically route transactions for processing with or without 3-D Secure based on the fraud assessment.

  • Connector Configuration — the connector settings where 3-D Secure lives, alongside capture mode and email settings.
  • Transaction States — a failed authentication ends the transaction in the Failed state.
  • Manual Tasks — how the platform asks for your decision on transactions flagged for review.