Stripe SCA Roll Out - Important Update for all EU Instance Managers using Stripe as a Payment Method
As of December 31st Secure Card Authentication comes into legislative force in Europe. This means that banks will start declining cards that are not securely authorised. Some banks have started declining cards already. You might have already noticed an increase in declined cards on the platform.
The delivery team has been working on ensuring that our Stripe integration is SCA compliant for many months. We are getting very close to the point in which our integration is fully SCA compliant, but it is likely that we won’t have finished everything we would like to before the deadline. We will, however, have finished enough to ensure that transactions continue with minimal disruptions to shops.
TO DO: For all enterprises using Stripe as a payment method, update their payment method to StripeSCA BEFORE their first order cycle opens for 2021.
Some things to note:
- Hubs will not be able to refund their shoppers that paid for their order using StripeConnect payment method. They will need to log into Stripe to complete any refunds. This is a significant point to note as it will cause significant disruption to the way Hubs operate. Unfortunately there is no realistic way around this. As instance manager or support you have two options: a) offer to do refunds for enterprises by logging into your instance stripe account or b) Letting enterprises know how to do this themselves. Below are some notes to help minimise this disruption.
- It is possible to switch enterprises to SCA without informing them, however you may end up with a large number of support requests for refunds as the above point explains. For this reason we strongly advise that you notify any users, and ideally coordinate with them (see below) if they trade a significant volume via OFN.
- Currently subscriptions payments will work with SCA payment method, but if authentication is required by the bank then the card will be declined. By December 31st we plan to ensure that if a payment fails due to SCA this will be clear so we can ask the shopper to authorise their card (using the same process that they currently use to authorise subscriptions).
- This issue makes refunds harder with SCA, but should be merged in the next release or two.
How to organise switching enterprises to SCA
The actual switch is very easy - you just update the payment method from Stripe to StripeSCA.
The planning around the switch is a little harder. This roll out plan has been used by the UK and, though a bit dated now, might have some ideas useful to others.How you do your SCA roll out will depend on a number of factors:
- How is your support team working over the Christmas period? If your team is taking a break then make sure you factor in this roll out.
- How are your enterprises trading over the break? Many enterprises don’t trade from the 25th until January, so it is worth checking in with them.
For any enterprises taking a break over Christmas and New Years it is worth checking in with them as to when they will finalise their pre-Christmas orders eg process their refunds. I would advise coordinating with these enterprises to switch to SCA:
- AFTER they have finalised their Christmas orders, refunds etc
- BEFORE they open their first order cycle for 2021.
This will certainly create the least support overhead.
For enterprises that are not taking any break then it is worth understanding if they expect reduced sales volume at any point. If so, best to roll out at this time so long as it is before Dec 31st. If they do not expect this, then roll out as soon as possible.
For enterprises that trade with subscriptions. You will need to take additional action - BUT not just yet. We recommend that you coordinate with your subscriptions users notify ALL shoppers that they will need to reauthorise their cards within OFN to ensure their payments are not interrupted. Card reauthorisation will follow the same process as is used now from the shoppers perspective. I’ll post on this channel when these changes are merged so that you know you can begin the process.