The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) has followed the lead of the Bank of England and announced a delay to the roll out of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) rules. National regulators have been given additional leeway by the European Banking Authority to extend the September deadline for the introduction of the new rules in order to give firms more time to prepare.
E-commerce businesses have warned that more than a quarter of payments would fail under the new regime – which demands a two-step verification process for all online purchases over EUR30.
Announcing the delay, the CBI states: „The Central Bank of Ireland recognises the difficulties with meeting this deadline. We have been engaging with the industry to develop a migration plan to implement SCA for e-commerce transactions, as soon as possible after this date.”
The Irish central bank says it wants to agree a harmonised approach to the migration time periods across the European Union and may well fall in line with UK timetable.
The Bank’s decision has been welcomed by the Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), which says that an extended deadline will allow more time for the e-commerce industry, including online businesses, to implement SCA reforms in a compliant manner.
Gill Murphy, head of payments schemes, BPFI says: “Today’s statement by the Central Bank is a very positive development for consumers and online businesses as it will prevent unintended disruption to online shopping from 14th September. That said, any additional time will be limited so it is critical that all ecommerce businesses and operators continue to progress their preparation and implementation at pace.”
This migration period, yet to be defined by the CBI, will allow more time for the ecommerce industry, including online businesses, to implement SCA reforms in a compliant manner. BPFI will continue to work with the CBI on the specifics of the migration period, „which we hope will be harmonised across Europe”.
Notwithstanding today’s notice, from the 14th September card issuing banks in Ireland will continue to process eCommerce payment transactions as they do today.
BPFI and their member banks continue to progress the implementation of all other elements of PSD2, including SCA for online banking, which will be fully rolled out on or before the legislative date of 14th September.
„We plan launch a further public awareness campaign for consumers around this later this month which follows an earlier campaign rolled out in July.”, BPFI mentioned.