Hotel-tech glossary

SCA

Strong Customer Authentication. PSD2-mandated two-factor authentication for card payments.

SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) is the PSD2-mandated two-factor authentication for card-not-present payments in the EU. Typical implementation is 3D Secure 2, which adds a step at booking where the cardholder confirms via banking app or SMS. Modern booking engines and payment processors handle SCA automatically without operator-side configuration.

Related terms

PSD2

EU Payment Services Directive 2, requiring Strong Customer Authentication for payment transactions.

Booking Engine

The reservation widget on a hotel's direct website that converts visitors to bookings.

Part of the hotel-tech glossary. Maintained by Maciej Dudziak, founder of Guestivo.