Online Global Payments SCA
According to the World Payments Report conducted by PNB Paribas, the French multinational financial group and Capgemini (also a French multinational) for 2018, the number of global non-cash transactions are estimated to grow at a 12.7% rate until 2021.
This is especially true for the travel industry, where online payment methods have changed drastically in the past ten years, and will continue to change even more in the next years to come. Morten Larsen, Product Manager at Booking.com mentioned the impact of online payment trends in the travel industry,in an article he wrote for Phocuswire saying that:
“Whereas once customers had scant options – primarily credit cards and bank transfers – to make bookings over the internet, they now have an ever-expanding choice of 21st-century technology, from PayPal to MobilePay.”
Taking into consideration the rapid changes in the different payment options available due to the technological advances and the rise of online payment transactions, agencies in the vacation rental business have to be prepared to take on these changes.
Are you ready to do so?…. Here are some good reasons why you should already have an online platform with automated payments in place for your customers:
Benefits of Having an Online Payment Platform
Fast and Quick Payment:
How many times have you left a page and not finished a transaction? The time frame between inserting the card details and actually clicking on the payment button, means you give the customer the chance not to finish the booking process. Automating your payments means you reduce the risk of the client not finishing the transaction. Plus it also increases the possibility of having recurring bookings.
Multi-Currency Support:
Dealing with different currencies can be a hassle. With an online payment platform you will forget about dealing with this type of issue, since it supports multi-currency.
Payment Installments:
Travelling can be quite expensive, so many people prefer to make their payments in installments with their Credit Cards, this way they do not hit their pocket so hard in one single month.
PCI DSS Compliance:
Online Payment Platforms are more secure since they have to be PCI DSS compliant, this means that the cardholders data that is stored, is more secure from possible frauds and data breaches.
And talking about data protection when processing online payments, do you know about the new European Regulation SCA?
What you should know about Global Payments SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)
Taking into consideration the technological advancements of online payments and the evolution that has taken place in the past years, the European Union will be implementing a new regulation on the requirements for authenticating online payments. If you would like to have a closer look at the original requirements you can see them here.
The new EU regulation PSD2 14th September 2019, is set out to reduce fraud and increase security. But what exactly is SCA and how does it work?
What is SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)?
Here are some general points you should know about Global Payments SCA:
- It is an additional authentication that needs to be built into the checkout flow.
- This additional authentication needs at least two of the following three elements: extra validation eg. password/pin, a device to authenticate eg. phone or hardware token and a personal validation such as fingerprint or face recognition.
- The regulation only applies to countries within the European Economic Area.
- SCA is required for ¨customer initiated¨ online payments. Not all payments require SCA, for example recurring debit card payments will not need authentication since they are considered ¨merchant initiated¨.
- There are various methods of authentication, one of the most common ones is the 3D Secure.
The above, is just a small summary of Global Payments SCA, but if you need more information, Stripe (the well known digital payment platform) has written an elaborated guide of the new regulation. If you wish to dive more into the topic you can click here.
The world of online payments is growing at a fast rate and technology is the catalyst, accelerating the use of non-cash payments and creating new payment options.
This is especially true for the travel industry, where the focus is to give the customer a seamless experience all through the traveler’s journey from start to end. The starting point of the journey is their booking experience and having an automated process for them to make their online payment easier is one of crucial points in the journey. So I will ask our readers, does your Vacation Rental Agency offer a seamless online payment experience?
If you do not have automated online payments yet, and want to give your client the best possible experience in this point of their journey, Avantio will be able to help you out with Avantio Payments, where you will be able to integrate within your web automated payments. Are you interested? If you want to know more, stay tuned with our next blog where we will be talking more about this new service.
