First Atlantic Commerce (FAC), a leading, international, multicurrency payment and risk management solutions provider, and Scotiabank, an international bank based in Canada and the leading bank in the Caribbean, have joined together to offer 3D Secure services to online merchants in 7 countries across the English Caribbean.

Through this partnership, Internet merchants in the Caribbean will now be able to support 3D Secure for Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode on their web sites for the first time. The service will be available to merchants in Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Anguilla, Turks & Caicos and Guyana with rollout to an additional 11 countries in the English Caribbean planned in the near future.

"This is an extremely important service for online merchants," said Andrea Wilson, CEO of First Atlantic Commerce. "The objective of 3D Secure is to reduce fraud through the verification of the cardholder at the time of payment in a CardNotPresent' environment, such as the Internet. When implemented, 3D Secure protects online merchants from the financial losses associated with "I didn't do it" chargebacks. We are very excited about making this more available in the Region."

Both Visa and MasterCard offer chargeback liability shift for fraud related chargebacks when the transaction is authenticated through Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. This also includes liability shift for attempted Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode requests, which means that even if the cardholder is not enrolled, the merchant is not liable for certain Reason Code chargebacks. So the benefits to both Scotiabank International and its merchants are significant.

"The launch of this service to our existing and prospective Internet merchants is yet another way that Scotiabank is helping our clients in minimizing online fraud, while maximizing sales," said Rob Macdonald Scotiabank's Director, Merchant Acquiring Services. "We have worked with FAC for many years processing millions of dollars of credit card transactions for a range of businesses and Government bodies, and implementing 3D Secure is a natural next step in the evolution of our solutions to these important customers."

The benefits associated with 3D Secure:
- Provides internet merchants with the ability to verify a consumer's true identity through a secure, electronic, non "face to face" authentication process.
- Enables all parties in an eCommerce payment transaction to transmit confidential and valid payment data
- Provides verification to the merchant that the buyer is the authorized owner of a card account
- Offers immediate protection from fraudrelated chargebacks ("I didn't do it" chargebacks.)