Getting SCA ready with WooCommerce Stripe payment gateway

WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway plugin automatically conforms to SCA without making any additional settings. We ensure that your customer has to go through all these authentications only if truly necessary. And when the customer does need to authenticate, it is done with reliable technologies like biometric ID and 3D secure2.

As a part of the second Payment Service Directive (PSD2) regulation, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) has been introduced in Europe for ensuring secure online payment transactions.

The regulation demands to have a two-way authentication for all online payment transactions. Transactions that fail to meet the SCA authentication parameters may be declined by the concerned banks.

In order to ensure SCA compliance for online payments, you will have to implement an additional authentication in the checkout flow. To comply with the SCA requirement, the customer’s identity has to be verified using at least two of the following:

• Something the user KNOWS (e.g. password, pin)
• Something the user HAS (e.g. ID card, mobile phone)
• Something the user IS (e.g. biometrics)

The checkout with SCA compliance may require you to have an additional authentication step(dynamic authentication) in the checkout workflow.

1. Payment initiation
   To initiate a payment, the customer will have to enter the card details and complete the checkout form.
2. Prompt dynamic authentication
   The stripe platform may check the necessity for authentication. Depending upon the bank, it uses the 3Dsecure2 to initiate a one-time passcode or biometric ID for authentication.
3. Payment completion
   Once the authentication is successful, the payment will be completed.

With SCA, customers will be made to re-authenticate their purchases with a stored card by returning to a website or app. This may be tough for the business systems to manage, frustrated for customers to deal with eventually making the checkout a complicated process. This aside, the authentication procedure may also vary depending on the different localities, the bank involved, and the card network.

• For understanding each feature of the plugin, refer to the product setting up article.
• Or check out the documentation section for more related articles.

To know more about the product, check out the Stripe Payment Gateway Plugin for WooCommerce.