Strong Customer Authentication
A regulatory authentication requirement for many electronic payments under PSD2.
Strong Customer Authentication, or SCA, is the PSD2 requirement that many electronic payments in the UK and EU must be authenticated using at least two of three factor categories — something the payer knows, something they have and something they are. It is delivered in practice through 3D Secure for cards, through biometric checks in banking apps for open-banking flows, and through equivalent flows for other methods. Specific exemptions reduce friction on low-risk and low-value transactions.
felloh handles SCA the way travel needs it.
Repeat customers, balance collections and high-value bookings each get the right authentication treatment — without breaking the booking journey.
What it means for travel businesses.
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 handles it.
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.
Related terms.
3DS2 / 3D Secure 2
Card authentication that asks the cardholder to prove the payment is genuine.Read termGlossary termPSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2)
EU regulation that introduced strong customer authentication and opened bank accounts to licensed third parties.Read termGlossary termCustomer authentication
The process of confirming the customer making a payment is who they claim to be.Read termGlossary termLiability shift
When responsibility for a fraudulent transaction moves from one party to another under scheme rules.Read termGlossary termPayment link
A shareable link that lets a customer make a payment for a specific amount and purpose.Read termSee how this works around your bookings.
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