Some pretty important changes are taking place with respect to online reservation, this is all due to the European regulation PSD2. PSD2 came into force on the 1st of January 2021 causing hoteliers in Europe to adapt their payment collection processes to this new regulation.
PSD2 was created to make online payments safer and more secure in order to protect consumers. One of the most important parts of the legislation is the so called Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirement. SCA states that in order to approve an online payment, the card issuer (VISA, Mastercard etc) needs to receive 2 of the 3 different types of authentication:
Where in the past a card could be charged with only 1 type of authentication (something you know – the credit card details), now with SCA in place this is not enough anymore and the holder will need to actively give a second authentication at the moment of payment. For the hotel industry this obviously poses a challenge as most hoteliers, charged their customer cards to collect down payments or cancellation cost without the customer being present. So, how do we solve this and assure hoteliers can continue to collect payment from their customers?
Redforts has developed an SCA enabled payment gateway that allows you request payment from your customers and invite them to pay online with credit cards, Paypal, Bizum, iDeal or almost any other kind of online payment method. Payments are automatically processed by Redforts and registered in the reservation. Customers will be able to see their payments online and be informed of their payment due dates and possible refunds. And the best news is, it is not ONLY for direct reservations, you can request payment for any reservation regardless where it was made: on your website, by telephone or even on an OTA channel.