Ralf Ohlhausen, Executive Advisor at PPRO, comments:

“It’s easy to understand how the pandemic has changed priorities and caused delays in many projects. However, Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) was originally meant to come into force in September 2019 and so far only non-card payment methods had to implement it. Whilst many merchants are hesitant, a recent study suggests that 37% of them expect no changes to conversion rates and indeed 31% expect to see greater conversion rates – highlighting there really shouldn’t be any further delay.

“With more consumers online than ever before, SCA is crucial for addressing the imbalance of security versus convenience in today’s accelerated digital era. Not only do consumers remain at risk, but the ongoing preferential treatment for card payments (not having to apply SCA) over any other type of payments (having to apply SCA) is very anti-competitive for the wider payments landscape. If the regulator agrees to suspend this application then this cannot just apply to cards, but to everyone else as well.”