3D Secure (3DS) is an additional security layer used during online credit and debit card transactions. It helps us prevent unauthorized card usage by asking cardholders to verify their identity through an extra authentication step.
Why am I seeing a 3D Secure challenge?
To protect you from fraud, we occasionally initiate challenges for extra verification on a transaction.
How does the 3D Secure challenge flow work?
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Initiation: When you start an online transaction, we might decide to ask for additional verification. You’ll see this ask in a pop-up on the website where you’re making a purchase. It’ll look like this:
- Notification: We’ll send you an email and mobile notification. Each one will take you to your Mercury account to login. You might have to update your mobile app to version 4.17 or later to receive 3DS notifications if you haven’t updated after March 24, 2025.
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Challenge prompt: Once you’re logged into Mercury, we’ll ask if it’s you making the purchase, and you can confirm or deny. It’ll look like this:
- Completion: Once you’ve let us know it’s you, we’ll complete the transaction.
What if I don’t receive a notification or the challenge times out?
- Email notifications: You should always receive an email notification with a link to verify your transaction. We’ll send the email to the email address we have on file for your Mercury account.
- Mobile notifications: Your Mercury mobile app might need to be updated to receive mobile 3DS notifications. If you haven’t updated your app after March 24, 2025, you might not receive a mobile notification. We also strongly recommend setting up biometric verification like FaceID to make it even easier (and more secure) to login to the mobile app to complete verification.
- Challenge timeout: For your security, challenges time out after 10 minutes. When you log in to the challenge, we’ll show you a countdown timer that displays how much time is left. If 10 minutes have passed since you attempted the transaction, try the transaction again with the merchant.
How do I know if my transaction was successful?
After successfully completing the 3D Secure challenge:
- Confirmation screen: After you click or press “This was me” to verify your identity, we’ll show a confirmation screen letting you know the transaction will progress.
- Merchant confirmation: You should also see the pop-up on your merchant website confirming that the transaction went through.
- Mercury transactions: You should see the transaction reflected as pending on your Mercury Transactions page.