You may notice that some payments are declined due to authentication problems. In this article, we focus specifically on instances where the authentication has failed for payments where the merchant has not complied with the latest PSD2 regulation.
Why has your payment not been authenticated by 3DS security?
Anyone processing online payments has to introduce more robust security and authentication to protect consumers, following the revised Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) regulation. PSD2 is a European regulation for electronic payment services that seeks to make payments more secure. Specifically, online businesses have to support the 3DS2 security system in order to meet the requirements for strong customer authentication.
Your payments are likely to be declined at merchants who haven’t complied with the regulation as they are not using the robust authentication on your first payment. You may sometimes encounter this issue at Amazon, Adobe, Booking.com, Expedia, Air France, EasyFlyer and others.
What to do
Typically, the authentication required by the regulation kicks in on your second or third attempt to pay with the same card. If your first payment has been declined, repeat the payment with the same card, and it should go through. However, if the payment is still declined, contact the merchant so they trigger the authentication method to ensure your payment is secure.
➡️ Note that this is not the only reason why a payment can be declined. For an (almost) full list of reasons, have a look here or here.