How to maximize frictionless rate for 3D Secure

Integrating EMV 3D Secure (3DS) 2.x into your payment flow is essential for balancing strong fraud prevention with minimal customer friction and high transaction approval rates.

A well-designed 3DS integration benefits merchants and PSPs by enabling liability shift for fraud, improving authorization approval rates, and supporting compliance with global regulatory requirements. Conversely, a poorly implemented 3DS flow can introduce unnecessary friction, leading to checkout abandonment and lost sales. The EMV 3DS 2.x standard significantly improves on 3DS 1.0 by enabling frictionless authentication (invisible to the cardholder where possible) and providing robust support for modern mobile and app-based checkout experiences.

The EMV 3DS 2.x standard significantly improves on 3DS 1.0 by enabling frictionless authentication and supporting modern browser‑ and app‑based checkout experiences.

Frictionless vs. Challenge Flows

  • Frictionless flow: The card issuer’s Access Control Server (ACS) authenticates the cardholder in the background using risk-based analysis of the data provided by the merchant. The transaction proceeds without any visible interaction from the cardholder.
  • Challenge flow: The issuer requires additional cardholder verification (for example, a one-time passcode, biometric authentication, or app-based confirmation). This introduces extra steps and additional friction during checkout.
Key objective: Maximizing frictionless authentication is critical to maintaining a smooth user experience and achieving high conversion rates.

Impact on Transaction Acceptance Rates

The transaction acceptance rate represents the percentage of transactions approved by the issuer. An effective 3DS integration improves acceptance in two key ways:

  • Preventing issuer declines: In markets with mandatory authentication, issuers may automatically decline transactions that do not include the required 3DS authentication. Supporting SCA through 3DS is therefore essential to avoid avoidable declines. Certain exceptions may apply, such as merchant-initiated transactions or eligible low-value and low-risk exemptions.
  • Reducing customer drop‑off: Additional authentication steps increase the likelihood of cart abandonment. Each abandoned authentication represents a lost sale. Increasing frictionless authentication rates directly reduces drop-offs and improves the number of successfully completed transactions.

Best Practices to Maximize Frictionless Authentication

Share Comprehensive Transaction Data

Data is critical for frictionless 3DS authentication. EMV 3DS 2.2 and later versions allow merchants to share over 100 data elements related to the transaction, device, and cardholder. Issuers use this information for risk‑based decision‑making.

Providing fewer data elements reduces issuer confidence and increases the likelihood of a challenge.

Merchants should aim to provide both mandatory and optional data fields, including (but not limited to):

  • Billing and shipping address information
  • Device and browser details
  • Cardholder contact information
  • Prior cardholder authentication and account history

Payment schemes define a subset of optional fields that are considered highly influential in issuer decision-making. These are often referred to as priority data elements and typically relate to the cardholder, their device, and their historical relationship with the merchant.

While many of these values may be derived automatically based on transaction context, some fields must be explicitly provided by the merchant.

High‑Impact Data Elements

  • Cardholder billing and shipping address
  • Cardholder email address
  • Cardholder phone number
  • Merchant‑specific cardholder identifier

Cardholder Account and Purchase History Parameters

The following parameters describe the cardholder’s historical interaction with the merchant. These fields are particularly important when the cardholder has an account with the merchant (via website or mobile application).

Account Authentication Details

Parameter name Description
customParameters[ReqAuthMethod] Indicates how the cardholder authenticated when logging into the merchant system during checkout.

Possible values:
01 – No authentication (guest checkout)
02 – Login using merchant credentials
03 – Login using federated ID
04 – Login using issuer credentials
05 – Login using third‑party authentication
06 – Login using FIDO Authenticator
customParameters[ReqAuthTimestamp] Date and time of the cardholder’s last login to the merchant system.
Format: YYYYMMDDHHMM

Account Age and Changes

Parameter name Description
customParameters[AccountAgeIndicator] Length of time the cardholder account has existed.

Values:
01 – No account (guest checkout)
02 – Created during this transaction
03 – Less than 30 days
04 – 30–60 days
05 – More than 60 days
customParameters[AccountDate] Date the cardholder account was created.
Format: YYYYMMDD
customParameters[AccountChangeDate] Date the cardholder account details were last changed.
Format: YYYYMMDD
customParameters[AccountChangeIndicator] Time since the last account change.
Values follow the same definitions as AccountAgeIndicator.

Password and Security Changes

Parameter name Description
customParameters[AccountPasswordChangeDate] Date of the last password change or account reset.
Format: YYYYMMDD
customParameters[AccountPasswordChangeIndicator] Time since the last password change.
Values follow the same definitions as AccountAgeIndicator.

Purchase and Shipping History

Parameter name Description
customParameters[AccountPurchaseCount] Number of purchases made by the cardholder in the previous six months.
customParameters[ShipAddressUsageDate] Date the shipping address was first used.
Format: YYYYMMDD
customParameters[ShipAddressUsageIndicator] Time since the shipping address was first used.
Values follow the same definitions as AccountAgeIndicator.

Order Characteristics

Parameter name Description
customParameters[ReorderItemsIndicator] Indicates whether the cardholder is reordering previously purchased items.

01 – First‑time order
02 – Reorder
customParameters[PreOrderPurchaseIndicator] Indicates whether the order contains items with future availability.

01 – Merchandise available
02 – Future availability
customParameters[PreOrderDate] Expected availability date for pre‑ordered items.
Format: YYYYMMDD
By consistently providing high‑quality transaction and cardholder data, merchants significantly increase the likelihood of frictionless authentication, resulting in higher approval rates, lower customer friction, and improved overall checkout performance.