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Paypal – enabling 3DSecure for PSD2 compliance with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

The current PayPal 3DSecure implementation through Cardinal Commerce is not allowing clients to add the gateway, as of Feb. 22, 2021. The Engaging Networks team is identifying an alternative solution, and clients with the integration already enabled with 3DS and those using Pay via PayPal should not be affected.

With the introduction of the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) of the European Union, payment gateways are required to start using ‘Strong Customer Authentication’ (SCA) by September 2019 . For you as an Engaging Networks user, this means that you will need to update your gateway configuration to contain some additional parameters.

For the supporter, they will see an extra pop-up when they submit their donation:

Setting up with Paypal

For the Paypal gateway you will need to enable ‘3D Secure’ functionality, which is provided by a Paypal partner called Cardinal. This is a third-party organisation, so you will need to go through a separate registration process for this. You can start the registration process here.

Please see alert above, as this process is NOT currently active to accept new clients using 3DS.

Note that when filling in this form, you will need to choose the Shopping Cart: ‘Custom Cart’. Once you submit the registration form, you will get a confirmation page. Make sure you print this page, or at least save the details somewhere for future use. It will contain the credentials required to enable 3D Secure for Paypal in Engaging Networks.

Setting up with Engaging Networks

Once you have completed registration and received your credentials, you can log in to the Engaging Networks dashboard to modify your gateway instances to include the new 3D Secure parameters. Now, visit Hello USERNAME > Account settings > Gateways.

Identify your PayPal instances in the list. Note there may, and should ideally be, two instances; one for Live transactions, and one for Testing. If you do not have a test instance of your gateway, it is recommended that you create one now as it will simplify testing, as you can use test card numbers rather than real card details to check how your new pages respond to both successful and failed/rejected donations. The TEST procedures for 3DSecure will usually also have different test details that can simulate a variety of conditions, both for successful transactions and failures. These details will be provided separately – see the Cardinal documentation received during registration for details.

Click to edit the gateway instances (TEST or LIVE). To hand, you will need your PayPal gateway details (for the TEST or LIVE instance), as well as the Cardinal details (also for a TEST or LIVE instance) you received when registering.

Check the ‘Enable 3D: ‘ option. This will bring up the additional parameters for the Cardinal account.

Once this is enabled, anyone donating through pages using this gateway will receive a popup light-box with a 3D Secure challenge.

You are recommend to test the procedure, both with a test gateway, and if working correctly, with a live gateway, before promoting the page.

Updated on February 24, 2021

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