Strong Customer Authentication

Why it matters in travel

SCA can reduce fraud and shift chargeback liability, but it needs to be implemented in a way that does not break high-value bookings mid-checkout or create manual payment follow-up. The right balance is exemptions where appropriate and authentication where it adds protection.

For a UK or EU travel business, SCA is not optional but the shape of the implementation is. A blunt authentication policy that challenges every transaction breaks conversion on legitimate customers; a permissive one that exempts everything wastes the chargeback-liability shift the regulation was designed to give. The right balance is data-driven and tuned by booking value and issuer.

SCA also defines the difference between an authentication experience customers tolerate and one they abandon. A clean flow where the customer gets a single biometric prompt inside their banking app and is back to checkout in seconds is invisible. A flow where the customer is redirected three times, told to enter a static password, then asked to confirm by SMS is one many customers do not finish.

How felloh helps

felloh handles SCA, 3D Secure and exemption logic inside the booking-level picture so travel businesses can meet the requirement without breaking customer flow or losing evidence.

The pay checkout handles SCA flows with the right exemption claims by booking value, region and recurrence, and the dashboard’s Transactions view records the outcome — challenged, frictionless, exempted — against the booking. Risk Analysis surfaces SCA outcomes alongside chargeback patterns so exemption policy can be tuned by issuer.

For UK and EU travel businesses, SCA stops being a friction point in the funnel and becomes a measured part of the conversion picture. Authentication evidence flows through to dispute defence automatically, and exemption strategy lifts acceptance where the data supports it.