Now. Everybody should officially know about 3D Secure/Verified by Visa by now. However, I’d wager that not many people actually do.

Also known as ‘Verfied by Visa’, In short, 3D Secure is the online version of  ‘chip and pin’ card security. All ecommerce websites were meant to implement this by the 1st of July. “If they didn’t” warned the banks, then “they would not be able to accept Maestro (switch) Cards after this date.

The way it works is simple. A consumer visits the website, purchases a product and then enters their pin number when prompted on the merchants website. However, if the consumer has not registered for Verified by Visa/3D Secure an advert will ‘pop up’ asking for the consumers bank account details and asking them to enter a password which they can use futuristically.

Would you do this if you’d not heard of 3D Secure or would you think something fishy was going on?

Because the implementation  process has not been pushed through by the banks then it has left a merchants in a state of flux. Some merchants (such as ASOS and Tesco) have implented Verfied by Visa. Some websites have not bothered launching it (too many to mention) and others (like our good selves) have done all of the technical work to implement it, but have held off launching it because of the lack of consumer knowledge of 3DSecure.  

So why havn’t we launched yet?  

It’s our concern that this will potentially stop consumers going through with their order if we ask for some personal information which they have not previously been asked for whilst placing orders on the internet.

What do you think? Should we launch 3D Secure, or should we wait until UK consumers are more knowledgable about the situation?

Answers on a postcard…

 Zak.