Every organisation is susceptible to data breaches and encounters them almost every day. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for security lapses, and one of their favorite targets is collecting sensitive payment information of customers. They can then use this information to commit payment fraud and cause damage to customers as well as the brand.

Thankfully, you can protect your customers’ information from being breached or hacked by using a 3D Secure payment gateway. With online shopping and e-commerce on the rise, customers look for more secure processes, especially when it comes to payment, and a 3D secure payment gateway provides them the much-needed trust.

What is a 3D Payment Gateway?

To counter online identity fraud and instill more trust in customers’ minds about online transactions, major payment processors were invented with a preventive measure known as a 3D secure payment gateway. It adds another level of security to your payments and ensures that payments go through successfully without exposing any sensitive information. Visa’s Verified by Visa and MasterCard’s SecureCode are examples of 3D secure payments that you must be familiar with.

It is often referred to as 3DS payments because it uses 3 Domain Servers to secure your online transaction. The three domains are:

The Acquirer Domain: the merchant or the bank to which you’re paying.
The Issuer Domain: the organisation or bank that issued the card being used.
The Interoperability Domain: payment systems that bridge the gap between an Acquirer Domain and an Issuer Domain like Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx.
How Does a 3D Secure Payment Work?

3D secure gateways are responsible for making sure that every transaction is secure and carried out by the user himself. This is why the cardholder is often required to enter an OTP or a unique passcode known only to them. To understand how 3D Secure works, here are the steps in detail:

The card information is collected first by asking the customer to enter the card data for their credit or debit card.
Once the information is entered, the system checks if the card is already registered for 3D Secure or not.
If the card supports 3D Secure and is enrolled in the system, the user is then redirected to a 3D secure page of the respective card provider.
Now comes the additional verification step. Once the customer is on the provider’s website, they are asked to enter their unique password/pin or the one-time authentication code which is sent to their registered email address or phone number.
Once the correct information is entered and verified, the user then goes back to the merchant’s website to confirm the payment.
The user will then receive the ‘payment confirmed’ message. This marks the end of the payment process.