Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

What is SCA? 

From 14 September 2019, there are new requirements for authenticating online payments made by European customers, as part of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). These are known as 'Strong Customer Authentication' or SCA and are designed to help reduce fraud and make payments more secure. 

The requirements apply to all online card payments where both the business and cardholder's bank are in the European Economic Area (EEA). To comply, businesses must use an extra layer of authentication when processing transactions. It is likely this will still apply in the UK after Brexit. 

What does it mean for organisers using Helm? 

You don't have to do anything differently - we've got you covered! 

Using Stripe, our payment processor, we've added a two-factor authentication step to all transactions whenever an attendee buys a ticket to your event. This is triggered during the checkout phase after your attendee fills in their details. 

What does it mean for attendees at my event? 

Attendees will need to authenticate the transaction after entering their payment details. 

How they do this will depend on their card provider. It may be by providing a fingerprint through their bank's app, a code sent by text message, or by entering a PIN using a card reader, for example. 

If attendees have any queries surrounding the authentication of their transactions, they will need to contact their bank for more information.