How does the frictionless flow work?
When a payment goes through 3-D Secure, the merchant’s 3-D Secure server sends the issuer data about the transaction, the payment method and the customer’s device. EMVCo, which publishes the specification, says this data lets issuers approve many payments when consumers simply click to buy, while higher-risk transactions can be stepped up to further authentication. If the issuer’s risk assessment is satisfied, it returns an authenticated result straight away: that is the frictionless flow. If not, it starts a challenge, such as a one-time code or a confirmation in the banking app.
Why does it matter?
Every challenge is a point where customers drop out, while a frictionless authentication gives the merchant most of the benefit of 3-D Secure, including the usual liability shift for fraud disputes, without that friction. As an illustrative example: a store sends 20,000 payments a month through 3-D Secure. If 70% pass frictionlessly and 10% of challenged customers abandon, 600 payments are lost to challenges. Raising the frictionless share to 80% through better data cuts that to 400.
What raises the frictionless rate?
Complete and consistent data: billing and shipping addresses, email, phone, device information and account history. EMVCo recommends version 2.2 or higher of EMV 3-D Secure for the best functionality. Issuer behaviour differs by country, so frictionless rates should be tracked per issuer country and per provider.
Where does Omno use it?
3-D Secure is performed by the connected PSP. Omno’s hosted checkout handles the authentication step inside the same flow, statuses such as PENDING_3DS resolve later by webhook, and routing and cascading keep the authentication state consistent when a payment moves between providers.