Transforming the eCommerce Experience for Merchants and Customers

The pandemic has prompted a massive spike in eCommerce transactions, as consumers changed their behaviors and merchants adapted to increase their online presence. Research from McKinsey shows that organizations leapfrogged five years’ worth of digital adoption over just eight weeks¹ during 2020.

However, the eCommerce boom has also intensified the security processes required to make a sale, presenting a quandary for businesses – how can they ensure a frictionless shopping experience for online customers while safeguarding against fraud?

Striking a balance between seamless experience and strong security

It’s hard enough to make a sale online – an average 70 percent of carts are abandoned by online shoppers across nearly 50 different industries² – with further password protection, dual-authentication and other security measures risking another barrier in place of a sale. A Transmit Security report found that 55 percent of consumers said they have stopped using a website because the login process was too complex³, while 92 percent said they would rather abandon a website visit than recover or reset their passwords.

So, what’s the industry answer?
EMV 3-D Secure: Next-generation authentication

EMV 3-D Secure is a world-class authentication solution with rich data at its core. This industry-wide messaging standard allows merchants and issuing banks to verify consumer identity before a transaction is sent for authorization, helping them to detect and prevent fraud while benefitting consumers with a smooth, consistent user experience across multiple payment channels, including mobile web, in-app and digital wallet payments.

It can also eliminate the need for consumers to type in passwords to complete their online purchases, meaning fewer steps and fewer false declines at online checkout. Additionally, EMV 3-D Secure allows issuers to leverage advanced data models and intelligent rules to make data-driven authentication decisions and reduce friction at checkout.

Taking the friction out of shopping

eCommerce has become a springboard for future growth, not just supplementary income. Visa offers a world-class security protocol helping to not only reduce fraud rates but also increasing the chances of a customer completing a transaction.

In CEMEA, our data shows that the fraud rate on 3-D Secure-verified transactions is ten times lower than transactions where the protocol was not used⁴. Globally, we found that adoption of EMV 3-D Secure led to 50 percent decrease in fraud⁵.

We have also seen an increase in approval rates when compared to the previous iteration of the technology. That means there is a higher chance for customers to complete a transaction, as they otherwise would have been challenged at checkout and ended up abandoning the shopping cart. The strong uplift in approval rates emanating from a vastly improved customer experience would naturally drive improved customer loyalty and satisfaction. Ninety-three percent of CEMEA issuers have now enabled EMV 3-D Secure, offering a strong base that merchants can benefit from by migrating to the new protocol. With the latest EMV 3-D Secure protocol and Visa's solutions merchants can avoid and detect fraud more effectively, while consumers are enabled to make secure transactions with less friction across multiple payment channels.

Merchants should upgrade to EMV 3-D Secure before 15 October 2022 to ensure secure payments continue to be supported across ecommerce platforms.