What is Strong Customer Authentication?
Strong customer authentication (SCA) is a requirement of Europe’s revised Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) mandate to increase security and also minimize fraud risk around electronic payments. The aim of PSD2 is to protect consumers, promote banking innovation, and facilitate safer cross-border European payment services. SCA came into effect in 2019. With approval by the EEA, the implementation deadline was pushed to December 31, 2021. Strong customer authentication requires two factor authentication as well as dynamic linking (meaning a clear and unforgeable message to the consumer) to ensure the consumer is fully informed and makes an active decision to authorize a payment transaction. In other words, to be able to successfully process a payment under the new rules, banks are supposed to ask customers for at least two authentication factors, for example a PIN or password entered on their mobile device would constitute two factors, which are knowledge and possession. With a simp