Maestro SecureCode – It’s Mandatory!

 

MasterCard have begun audit activity to ensure compliance with this mandate and have identified merchants who are not compliant. Merchants who are not able to process SecureCode but continue to accept Maestro cards may face fines.

This activity will continue for the foreseeable future, and we therefore remind you that fines can be up to US $25,000 per month – and they will be backdated to July 2009 where appropriate.

 

If you continue to accept Maestro cards online without the ability to support SecureCode, we will be unable to defend these fines on your behalf and will pass them to you.

By offering SecureCode to your customers for all MasterCard products (and verified by Visa for Visa cards) you can increase customer confidence when they transact with you. This will allow you to protect your business from certain types of charge backs.

Also, cardholders increasingly expect to use SecureCode or Verified by Visa as part of their online authentication process. You may also be at risk of losing sales if you are unable to support this technology, in addition to possible card scheme fines.

For clarification, we would remind you that the cardholder is not currently obliged to use SecureCode (even if you support it), but merely supporting it will afford you, as a merchant, additional protection from fraud and remove the risk of fines for non support.

If you choose not to support Maestro SecureCode, you must stop accepting Maestro cards online and remove all references to it from your payment pages/website to protect yourself from potential fines.

If you have any queries with regards to implementing SecureCode, you should contact your service provider for further information and guidance.