Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

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Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

Last updated December 03, 2025 18:39

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

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 SCA 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 subscription 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.
  • In the Payment Information panel, click Authorize Payment 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.

A bank may trigger 3DS/SCA for a renewal payment. If so, you can approve the payment using one of these methods, depending on how the bank triggers the request for authorization.

Troubleshooting failed customer payments

Customers with credit cards issued in the EEA may see an extra authentication step during checkout. If a customer doesn’t authorize the charge, the transaction will fail. In these cases, ask the customer to try again, ensuring they verify the charge with their bank.

Fix a failed customer renewal payment

Verifying the first payment for a subscription product or pricing plan should automatically verify future renewal payments, but in some cases, depending on the bank, your customers may need to re-verify to avoid a failed renewal payment. If your customer's renewal payment fails because of 3DS/SCA, they can fix the issue by deleting and re-adding their saved card in their customer account. They should:

  1. Log into their customer account.
  2. Click Payment, then click their saved payment method.
  3. Click Delete payment method, then click Back.
  4. Click Subscriptions, then click the subscription that failed.
  5. Click Update payment method, then click Add new payment method.
  6. Enter their payment details. This will prompt them to re-authenticate their card.
  7. Click Save.

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Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)