How online payments will change in the EU

This is part of the European regulation called PSD2 which aims at making online payments more secure. Banks are required to verify the identity of their customers when they are using their credit cards to make an online payment.

These 3D Secure checks are not necessary all the time and their frequency can vary based on different factors, such as the payment amount or the historical data of your payments with your bank. 

Depending on your bank, you might be asked to authenticate whenever you are triggering a payment. 

• In cases where FREE NOW would perform a pre-authorisation based on the estimated fare amount

• In cases where you have to actively click to pay or slide to pay at the end of a tour.

This directive impacts all the banks issuing credit cards in Europe, so they will have, most likely, already contacted you to enroll in the program. The wording used can differ from one bank to another but you can expect them to use the term ‘3D Secure’. We recommend that you follow your bank’s instructions to make sure you are ready to use your credit card online.

After this regulation is applied in Europe, it might be that your bank will request an additional authentication check when you are doing payments online via FREE NOW using a credit card. 

If authentication is needed, you will be redirected to an authentication process called 3D Secure. The bank will then will be able to verify that you are the person making the payment and that you are the cardholder of the credit card.

If your bank requires authentication, you will be redirected to a view where you will need to complete the authentication. There are different ways for the banks to verify the identity of the cardholder :

• One time 4 digits passcode sent via SMS

• Password requested

• Fingerprint recognition

Once you have performed this authentication successfully, you will be able to proceed with your FREE NOW experience.

It depends on your bank and your credit card, different types of 3D Secure checks can be applied for you. We recommend contacting your bank for more detailed information.

No, the objective from the European Union and the banks is not to annoy you or degrade your customer experience but to improve the security of online payments. Your bank will request authentication in accordance with their own rules and based on your online payment usage.

We reserve the right to request a 3D Secure check when you add a new credit card. By doing so, we aim to reduce the length of the process on future payments while also improving the security of your future payments.

The information related to your 3D Secure process as well as your credit card details are processed with a high level of encryption and handled by payment institutions with high level of PCI DSS compliance. The institutions responsible for the 3D Secure process will be mentioned in the view which appears in the app (Either Visa, Mastercard or American Express).

Depending on the country in which you use FREE NOW, there could be an authorisation of the estimated payment amount upfront when you try to book the service. 

This is called a pre-authorisation. This is just a temporary hold of the funds on your account which will only be charged effectively if you received the service in the end. If you cancel your request and are not subject to any cancellation fee, the funds will be released. 

Depending on the bank, this release might take 1 day or 2 unfortunately but FREE NOW does not have any influence on the speed of this release.

The payment process will fail and you will have a message in the app suggesting you to try a different payment method and/or contact your bank in order to solve the issue. 

If your bank is requesting you to verify your identity when you are paying, it means that your credit card is “enrolled” with 3DS. Depending on your credit card configuration and your bank, this verification can have different forms (SMS, password, touch ID, etc..).

Even if you are the cardholder of the credit card, there are several reasons that can lead to a 3D Secure check to fail:

• You have input the wrong “One Time Passcode”

• You pressed the “Cancel” button or the back button on your phone

• You took too long to authenticate and the process timed out

• You did not receive any SMS from your bank

If the failure was due to missing information (forgotten password or SMS never received) for you to proceed with authentication, we would recommend for you to contact your bank and make sure to have everything set up with your credit card. You can also consult your online banking account to verify that your card is enrolled and that your personal details are updated on your bank account profile (phone number, etc.)

No, if you failed to verify your identity when required by your bank, your payment will not be accepted but you will still have access to the FREE NOW app. You will simply need to contact your bank to set up 3DS on your card or use a different payment method.

Failing to authenticate means that your payment has failed but it does not mean that your card is blocked. If you successfully authenticate, later on, you will be able to pay online with your credit card, provided that no other reason will cause the payment to fail (insufficient funds error, expired card, etc.).

We would recommend asking your bank what are the necessary steps in order to use your credit card for online payments and how to activate and use 3D Secure.

If your payment failed for another reason not related to 3D Secure issues, we would recommend asking your bank why there are restrictions on your card or any other reasons for why the payment failed while you were booking your taxi.

We recommend for you to read the communication provided by your bank related to 3D Secure and to follow their instructions.

You should also make sure that the information registered at your bank is up to date (phone number, address, email address, etc.).

If we authorise the estimated fare amount on your bank account during your first order and you cancel it to try again, you shouldn’t have to authenticate again if you try to order again for the same destination. Of course, should you hail to a different destination, the estimated price will change and we would have to adjust the amount of the temporary authorisation which could lead to another identity check.

It is your bank’s decision to perform those identity checks, they alone are responsible for the frequency and the rules that apply to require those checks. We expect payments with a low amount (lower than £30) to be less subject to identity checks than higher amount payments.

In the near future, your bank will improve their identity check process by enabling you to “whitelist” the companies you trust which means fewer identity checks will be required.

You can contact your bank if you are experiencing too many identity checks when using FREE NOW. Please bear in mind that FREE NOW is also aiming at reducing any unnecessary checks however the final decisions are taken by the banks.

You might run into issues during payment. The purpose of the identity checks requested by the bank is to confirm the identity of the card-holder of the credit card. The bank uses the information about the card-holder registered, like the phone number.

We recommend contacting your bank if you are in this situation so that they can provide an adapted solution.

These payment solutions based on “wallet” technology already provide a layer of security and strong customer authentication so if you are already using those payment methods, your experience of FREE NOW will not be affected

Anonymous prepaid cards are not impacted by this European regulation, however, they are not accepted on the FREE NOW platform.