UKHospitality has welcomed the decision by the Financial Conduct Authority to introduce a phased roll-out of Strong Customer Authentication and EU directive to ensure that electronic payments are performed with multi-factor authentication, to increase the security of electronic payments.
UKH and its members have been pushing for more time before the introduction of SCA to allow businesses more time to get to grips with the new measures, and for this to be communicated to customers, to avoid failed online transactions.
UKHospitality Chief Executive Kate Nicholls said: “The decision to implement a phased roll-out of strong customer authentication is extremely helpful for the sector. UKHospitality, along with its members, has been pushing for more time before the enforcement of the new measures and it is good to see the FCA recognise and support the collaborative industry response.
“We welcome measures to address online fraud, but it is clear that the whole payments system needs more time, including communicating these changes to customers. This announcement gives us the breathing-room to ensure we do not hit a payments cliff-edge, which would have damaged the sector and the UK’s tourism industry. It also provides an opportunity to look at the specific issues faced by hotels, including bookings from overseas and the complex payment environment for hotels.
“More work needs to be done to ensure that customer authentication is not only safe and secure, but also practicable and workable for businesses and customers. UKHospitality has been working hard with its members and the FCA in order to make sure we achieve this. We will continue to do so and we will be drawing on industry expertise to do so.”
