Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

Resources to help you better understand SCA, and how to verify your purchase of a Squarespace subscription.

Last updated August 27, 2024

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), a regulation as part of the European Union’s Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), came into effect on December 31, 2020. It requires online merchants to use 3D Secure, a technology that adds an extra verification step to checkout, for European customers. This guide explains the basics of SCA, what merchants need to know, and how to verify a purchase.

Why SCA?

SCA helps make online payments more secure. It’s a way to verify your customers’ identity, and may help protect you from liability for fraudulent payments.

How does it work?

Squarespace Payments, Stripe, and Square enable 3D Secure automatically for customers with credit or debit cards issued in the European Economic Area (EEA). If you use Squarespace Payments or Stripe with Squarespace Commerce, or if you use Stripe or Square with Acuity Scheduling, an extra authentication step will appear to your customers during checkout. This may be a pop-up in their browser, a push notification from their banking app, or a similar notification. The exact authentication process depends on the customer’s bank. It's not possible to customize this experience. To learn more, visit the SCA documentation from Stripe and Square.

SCA prompts won't appear to customers making a purchase using Squarespace point of sale, as point of sale is only available in the United States. 

Do I need to take steps for SCA?

No. If you’re a merchant, you don’t need to take any steps as the Squarespace platform is ready for this regulation. We've added technology to the Commerce and Scheduling checkout experiences to support additional authentication with European banks.

How do I verify my purchase?

If you're purchasing a Squarespace subscription, your bank may require you to verify the charge. There are three ways to verify your purchase:

  • Pop-up message: If you're completing a purchase and a pop-up message appears from your bank, review the message and authorize the purchase.
  • Email: If you receive an email from no-reply@squarespace.com asking you to verify a charge, log into your site and update your credit card to authorize the charge.
  • Domains panel (domain purchases only): If you're registering a domain and a Verify your purchase message appears in the Domains panel, click the domain showing the message, click Verify, then follow the prompts to complete your purchase. 

Note

If this is a recurring subscription, this additional verification should only be required one time at the beginning of the subscription, unless the pricing or other terms of the subscription have changed.

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