The much anticipated chaos from the expected influx of credit card declines did not materialise. The day came and went without any drama simply because the enforcement deadline was delayed at the 11th hour due to lack of industry readiness.
Albeit late in the day, thankfully common sense prevailed and stakeholders were spared the chaos which a ‘big bang’ implementation would have brought. The surge in declines of non-authenticated, non-exempted transactions could have impacted hotels significantly.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has now decreed that each National Competent Authority (NCA) is free to define their respective enforcement timelines. Early industry recommendations indicate an implementation delay of between 6 to 18 months with a soft enforcement period of 12 months which will enable stakeholders to properly test authentication, authorisations, soft decline processes, exemptions etc., before a later hard enforcement deadline is applied.
The lack of clarity surrounding the initial September 14th implementation date, the poor communication, lack of coordinated approach across the EU countries and the remaining uncertainty has not bathed the EBA in glory. The EBA now needs to establish a more considered, clearly communicated and coordinated EU implementation schedule, allowing industry players proper time to be prepared, and avoiding the debacle of recent months.
PSD2 and SCA will undoubtedly pose a significant challenge for the travel industry. The level of ambiguity which remains surrounding the different transition periods is not ideal but the fact remains that we as an industry need to be ready.
Bookassist will continue to take compliance seriously and will ensure that our hotels are PSD2 compliant and ready to meet the next implementation deadline once this is communicated.
