Customer authentication
The process of confirming the customer making a payment is who they claim to be.
Customer authentication is the process of confirming that the person initiating a payment is the legitimate account holder. It includes 3D Secure authentication, biometric checks performed by the issuer’s banking app, knowledge-based questions, and out-of-band approvals. Under PSD2, certain transactions in the UK and EU must use Strong Customer Authentication unless an exemption applies.
What it means for travel businesses.
Travel payments lean heavily on authentication because most sales are card-not-present and the values are high. A robust authentication setup is what shifts chargeback liability away from the travel business and keeps acceptance rates healthy on legitimate customers.
Authentication design is the place where conversion and risk meet directly. Too aggressive and legitimate customers drop off; too permissive and fraud and chargebacks follow. The right balance is data-driven, segment-specific and tuned by booking value, issuer, channel and recurrence.
The travel businesses that get authentication right read the outcomes at the booking level: which authentications succeeded, which were exempted successfully, which were challenged but completed, which were abandoned. That feedback is what lets the policy improve over time. The businesses that set authentication once and never tune it lose conversion they could have kept.
How felloh handles it.
felloh records customer authentication results alongside the booking so the evidence is available when a dispute, refund decision or compliance review needs it.
The Transactions view in the dashboard records the authentication method, outcome and exemption status against every payment. Risk Analysis aggregates the picture by issuer and channel so authentication policy can be tuned where it actually helps acceptance and chargeback liability.
For travel businesses balancing conversion against fraud and dispute risk, authentication policy stops being a static rule and becomes a measured decision. The same evidence supports the booking, the dispute defence and the compliance review.
Related terms.
Strong Customer Authentication
A regulatory authentication requirement for many electronic payments under PSD2.Read termGlossary term3DS2 / 3D Secure 2
Card authentication that asks the cardholder to prove the payment is genuine.Read termGlossary termCard verification
Checks used to confirm a card is genuine and the user has legitimate access to it.Read termGlossary termLiability shift
When responsibility for a fraudulent transaction moves from one party to another under scheme rules.Read termGlossary termFraud prevention
Designing controls, processes and product flows to reduce the likelihood of fraud succeeding.Read termSee how this works around your bookings.
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