PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for the Travel and Hospitality Sector

Implementing the more complex business, operational and technical changes required for the Travel and Hospitality (T&H) sector is proving to be even more challenging.  

Elavon, together with the card schemes and other industry-wide stakeholders recognise the challenges remaining with some interpretations of the Regulatory Technical Standards, as well as a lack of industry-wide technical specifications and guidance available to address the upgrades required for such a fragmented, complex and far–reaching eco-system.

In recent weeks, some of the regulatory ambiguity has been cleared away and technical specifications are emerging to fully enable the European T&H payments infrastructure for compliance. Card scheme transaction frameworks have evolved to meet new requirements and although some pieces of the PSD2 SCA puzzle still remain unsolved, the direction of travel is clear for all and the implementation options have now been clearly defined for this complicated merchant sector. We’re going to explore those implementation options with you now so that you can better decide:

• How you continue or modify your engagements with your customers on first contact.
• How you establish transaction processing procedures with your customers and indirect sales channels via consents and permissions supported by T&C agreements.
• How you will balance the desire for frictionless flows with the risk of liability shifts that will result from your decisions on your preferred options.

All T&H merchants strive for and rely upon a smooth customer journey. That starts with the first contact and continues throughout the experience until that customer returns home again safely.

At Elavon, we want that same service ethos for your payments processing. Safe and secure transaction journeys with frictionless flows, from start to finish. 

If you want to ensure that you achieve and maintain compliance with the regulations and continue to provide frictionless payment processing for your customers, the following will provide you with some valuable insights. You’ll be pleased to learn that those ‘unintended consequences’ of the regulations for your complex customer payments are all being dealt with.