Strong Customer Authentication

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) is a European payment rule that was introduced on 14 September 2019. This was introduced within the European Economic Area (EEA) as a means to reduce fraud. Under this new rule, payments to or from bank accounts within the EEA may need to complete an additional security step – like entering a PIN or a code sent to their phone. This also applies to paying your conference fees online.

Checkout

SCA comes into play during the checkout step of Registration. If your conference has opted for Paypal as their means of accepting payment, this will all be handled by Paypal.

If they are using Stripe to accept payments, at checkout you will be brought to a window like the one below:

Here, you will be asked to input your card details as normal. Once you click the ‘Pay’ button, if your transaction is subject to SCA, you’ll see another window similar to the below:

This confirmation code is part of the SCA security process. The exact nature of this security step will be up to the delegates chosen banks. Some banks may send a code via text message, or might send a push notification via your smartphone.

Once you have received the confirmation code and input it, you need to confirm your payment. Your transaction will then complete as normal.