SCA - EU Payment Security

What is SCA and how does it apply to my organization? Strong Customer Authentication.

Tony Sasso avatar
Written by Tony Sasso
Updated over a week ago

What is SCA?

SCA stands for Strong Customer Authentication and is a set of regulations that govern payment services in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). In a nutshell, SCA is multi-factor authentication for payments that aims to reduce payment fraud online. Learn more.

When does SCA go into effect?

While some countries have already enforced SCA, for the EU the deadline is December 31, 2020 and in the U.K the deadline is September 14, 2021.
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Does SCA Apply to me?

While Funraise can not provide legal counsel, here are some notes:

Most likely, SCA does not apply to you. SCA only applies to organizations where BOTH the donor and organization are based within the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA).

SCA does not apply to you if your organization is based outside the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA).

A US based org can accept donations from EU donors without requiring additional authentication for the payment. Likewise, an EU based org can accept donations from non EU donors without requiring additional authentication for the payment.
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