3-D Secure
The card scheme mechanism for authenticating a cardholder during an online payment, moving the authentication step to the issuer. Whether and how it is applied to a given checkout is a matter for whoever operates that checkout, and it interacts with both fraud exposure and how many customers complete the payment.
Why it matters to a merchant
The trade-off is the whole story: more checks mean fewer fraudulent transactions and also fewer completed ones, because some genuine customers abandon at the challenge. There is no setting that is right for every merchant — the right one depends on basket size, product type and how much fraud the business is actually seeing. It is a decision to revisit with data, not to set once.
Read more: Payment fraud: what a merchant actually controls
Where this comes up
Pages on this site that deal with this in context:
Related terms
In this section: How a payment moves