Why are my online payments transactions declining?

If your online payments transactions are declining this may be because your customer is not registered with their card provider for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).

The UK cards schemes (MasterCard, Visa, Amex and Discover® Global Network) as a part of the Strong Customer Authentication have increased the security requirements for cardholder verification for online transactions. This includes the implementation of an extra level of authentication required to complete an online transaction, known as ‘3D Secure’.

3D Secure has recently been upgraded from 3DS v1 to 3DS v2. This means customers using a website to purchase goods and services will need to be registered with their card issuer (the bank that issued their credit or debit card) to be able to complete the extra level of authentication required for SCA.

If a customer’s online transactions are declining, we recommend that the cardholder contact their issuer (the company that provided their debt or credit card) to ensure that their SCA registration is complete, so that the cardholder can process online transactions successfully in the future.

Once the cardholder has registered with their issuer for SCA (Strong Customer Authentication), online transactions can then be processed as normal.

Find out more about 3DS and SCA here: Making your transactions secure with 3DS2.