Strong customer authentication (SCA) is a requirement of the EU Revised Directive on Payment Services on payment service providers within the European Economic Area. This requirement ensures that electronic payments are performed with multi-factor authentication to increase the security of electronic payments.
SCA is triggered by your customer's bank and will require that your customer authorize their payment. Authentication can be required at the time of initial checkout as well as before a recurring order can process.
Alert
To enable SCA for subscriptions, you will need to have a supported payment gateway connected in Bold Checkout. Currently, Stripe is the only payment gateway that supports SCA alongside Subscriptions.
If your customer's initial payment triggers SCA, they will be required to authorize the payment in the checkout before the order will process successfully.
For recurring orders, Bold Subscriptions will send an email to your customer with a link to authorize their payment. Alternatively, they can also login to the Customer Portal to authorize their payment. This requires your customer to have an account on your store as well as access to the Customer Portal.
Pro-Tip
For more information on how to set up the Customer Portal, please visit Customer Portal Setup.
Orders pending authentication cannot be edited by your customer or an admin.
Example
Customer facing email notification in Bold Subscriptions
View in the Customer Portal:
Step 1: Enable 3D Secure in your Stripe settings
- In Bold Checkout go to Payment options > Payment gateways to ensure you have Stripe as your payment gateway.
- Select the ellipsis next to Stripe then Edit credentials.
- Select the checkbox next to Use 3D Secure card payments.
- Select Save.
Step 2: Enable Email Notifications in Subscriptions
- From within Subscriptions, navigate to Settings > Email notifications.
- Next to Payment requires Strong Customer Authentication notification, select the ellipsis then Edit email template.
- Edit the email template. (Optional)
- Enter the number of days that you’d like for the Notification period.
Note: This will determine when and how often your customers will recieve their email notification from the day their order was set to generate. Entering a notification period of 1 Day will mean the email reminder is sent every day until their payment is authorized. Using a setting of 2 Days will mean it will be sent every other day until their payment is authorized.
- Select Save.
- To turn on the email, move the toggle to the on position (green).