3D Secure
What is 3D Secure?
3D Secure is a system that reinforces the security of payments on the internet. In addition to the card number, its expiry date and the cryptogram written on the back of it, the 3D Secure system will also ask the customer to enter a password or a code received by SMS called One Time Password – OTP.
This system was designed to prevent CNP (Card No Present) type fraud, i.e. fraudulent payments by bank card without the actual presence of the card (stolen card numbers, for example).
This system allows to:
3D = 3 Domains
A card payment on the internet generally requires:
How does it work?
The 3D secure protocol gets the form of an additional step while executing the payment: authentication of the cardholder.
Why is the visual cryptogram not enough?
The visual cryptogram are the 3 numbers on the back of the card to be typed by the customer when purchasing on the internet. However, this information can be read visually on the card and copied, thus allowing payment without the presence of the card, and therefore possible fraud. With 3D Secure, additional information will be requested from customers to validate the payment.
The case of a real-time transaction
In practice, when the customer makes purchases on the internet, he must always enter the card number, its expiry date and the cryptogram, but if the card is 3D Secure, after entering this information, the customer will be automatically redirected to the site of his bank which will ask him for additional information.
Once the information has been provided, he will return to the merchant’s site, which will confirm the payment.
In this scenario, the bank’s server will confirm to the merchant that it is indeed the owner of the card.
When a transaction is called 3D Secure?
In order for a payment to be in 3DSecure mode, the card must be 3DSecure and the merchant must support 3DSecure.
Note that with a 3DSecure card, the customer can very well continue to make purchases in non-3DSecure mode with merchants who do not support 3DSecure. These purchases will not be secured by this system.
If the card is not 3DSecure, the customer may or may not make purchases with merchants covering 3DSecure (3DSecure merchants are free to accept payments with non-3DSecure cards or not)