Citi Introduces 3D Secure for North America Commercial Card Cardholders

Citi is introducing and implementing 3D Secure, an e-Commerce fraud prevention tool which shares data between merchants and issuers to help improve fraud detection and prevention.  As online third party fraud grows in North America, fraudsters may attempt to use e-Commerce sites more often as face-to-face transactions become more challenging to defraud with the rollout of chip based cards.

3D Secure technology allows merchants to send issuers, such as Citi, additional data elements including IP addresses, device IDs, and auxiliary information from third-party data providers. With this added data, 3D Secure can help Citi detect even more online fraud.  Likewise, this data allows Citi to reduce false declines for valid transactions by building profiles of valid behavior.  All merchants that display either the Verified by Visa™ or MasterCard SecureCode™ brands at checkout are 3D Secure enabled. 

In the vast majority of cases, Citi will continue to authorize transactions as it did before, using criteria such as: credit limits, single purchase limits and MCC restrictions. In a small number of cases, cardholders may be prompted to enter a One-Time Passcode (OTP) that they receive via SMS (i.e. text) message or email, in order to verify whether the cardholder is, in fact, the person making the transaction. Cardholders without a mobile number or an email address on file are allowed to authenticate the transaction by answering their security questions. Citi will utilize the data from the cardholder we have on file for this added authentication. If a transaction cannot be authenticated, the person making the purchase will receive a message stating that the transaction could not be authenticated and ask them to contact Citi Customer Service using the toll-free number on the back of their card. Citi's Customer Service representatives are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to help resolve such issues.

For more information on 3D Secure, please click here.