Forter, the Trust Platform for digital commerce, today launched Smart Payments, a new offering designed to increase digital commerce conversion rates and revenue. The offering optimizes the use of 3D Secure (3DS) to meet Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements and reduces friction in the payment process—Smart Payments executes 3DS only when additional validation is needed. Smart Payments simplifies compliance with government regulations including Payment Services Directive Two (PSD2) in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Digital commerce continues to grow rapidly, surpassing $8.7 trillion in transactions in 2021, yet businesses may not be fully realising their revenue opportunity. Gaps in decisioning across the digital commerce funnel negatively impact conversion rates, leave revenue on the table, and alienate legitimate customers whose transactions are falsely declined.
In order to mitigate the risk of fraud, merchants and regulatory agencies are pushing for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), which requires consumers to provide pins or passwords, validate their identity via a device, a fingerprint or other means. These steps add friction to digital commerce and increase cart abandonment. Forter research indicates that 18% of US shoppers have abandoned a transaction because the process was too long and complex.
Forter Smart Payments applies the company’s Identity Graph and machine learning to make informed 3DS recommendations. Forter can even execute the 3DS authentication if required by a business. Forter ensures that a transaction is routed for SCA only when necessary, reducing friction for the vast majority of consumers and maintaining PSD2 compliance for merchants doing business in the EEA. In addition, Forter Smart Payments provides visibility into 3DS recommendations, failure and conversion rates and business impact.
The requirement for SCA is even more pronounced for businesses that are based in or transacting in the EEA. These businesses are subject to a specific regulation—PSD2—that requires SCA before a transaction can be completed. Forter is the PSD2 solution company, using advanced technology to capitalise on exemptions, minimise the portion of transactions routed for authentication and maximise approval rates.
“We have successfully partnered with Forter for several years to reduce digital commerce fraud and abuse. When they showed us how they could also increase conversion rates while complying with PSD2, we moved forward,” said Sian Woods, Global Head of Security Operations & Fraud at ASOS. “The results were immediate—we are able to reclaim revenue that otherwise would have been lost to abandoned purchase processes. Smart Payments is a game-changer for our business.”
“Forter is committed to driving business outcomes for our customers. Understanding that regulations like PSD2 were complicating their conversion process, we have brought new intelligence to 3DS authentication,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO of Forter. “Smart Payments replaces dated processes and ‘dumb’ 3DS applied to every transaction, with a solution that delivers a streamlined experience to the vast majority of consumers and more revenue for our customers.”
Businesses can also apply Forter’s unique intelligence to route transactions to processors so as to maximise approval rates. They can also use Smart Payments to automatically recover a portion of lost transactions by resolving the declines of legitimate users.
