Hotel technology solution specialist HotelHub is set to
support TMCs, online booking agents, online booking tool providers and
corporates with implementation of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) as part
of the EU’s revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
The company says it has already undertaken developments to
its web-based agent booking platform, which includes its API connection used by
the business travel industry’s OBTs, to facilitate PSD2 compliance.
SCA is a new set of rules that changes how credit and debit
card holders confirm their identity when making online purchases to help
protect them from fraud. Cardholders booking travel online will often need to
undertake an extra step in the check-out process that requires them to verify
their identity, usually via a one-time password generated by their OBT and delivered
via SMS text, phone, or email.
HotelHub says its new functionality enables SCA codes and
SCA exemption codes to be passed on to the hotel content channels’ API.
Bookings made by TMCs or OBTs via HotelHub’s agency platform interface, which
connects to the hotel content API, are deemed to be Mail Order Telephone Order
(MOTO) transactions and therefore SCA exempt. HotelHub relays this information
to content providers for these types of transactions.
For end users of OBTs plugged into HotelHub’s API, work has
now been completed to allow those tools to pass on the 3DS SCA when the booking
is made with the end user’s credit card. In this case, HotelHub will relay the
information for the booking made. However, if the user is using the HotelHub
billback payment mode with a virtual card, HotelHub then passes an exempt code
for that booking.
Eric Meierhans, chief commercial officer of HotelHub,
commented: “Although enforcement of SCA under the EU directive has been delayed
until March 2022, and although we believe the SCA mechanisms will continue to
evolve to better adapt to the business travel industry, card issuers will begin
to test and introduce authentication requests well before then. Even though the
timeline for suppliers switching on SCA before next March is at their
discretion, many hotel groups and properties are already transitioning to the
new layers of protection.
“It’s important that we are ready to support all of our
clients who need to be compliant with the EU directive. We have therefore
invested in developing a PSD2-enabled channel in HotelHub and already piloted
the functionality with one of our TMC clients. This has allowed us to prepare
for receiving SCA codes from any OBT, pass them downstream to all channels
accordingly and manage the logic of exemptions for offline and specific payment
codes.”
For more information on SCA and how it will impact business travel bookings, read our guide.