The guidelines are an extension of the global technology organization's 3-D Secure messaging protocol for e-commerce purchases, enabling merchants to now provide more travel-related data for use in risk decisions. Information would include more details about the ticket, itinerary and travelers involved.
As part of a project of the EMVCo Associate Program, the International Air Transportation Association (IATA) and travel technology company Amadeus worked with EMVCo to deliver the EMV 3DS Travel Industry Message Extension. Expedia's ticket service also provided input on the guidelines.
"The additional security layer can help prevent unauthorized e-commerce transactions and protect the merchant from exposure to fraud," Junya Tanaka, chair of the EMVCo executive committee, said in a Wednesday press release.
"The new guidelines document has been designed to help meet the specific needs of the airlines and travel agents to reduce transaction fraud using current systems, and minimizing additional friction during the purchase experience," Tanaka added.
EMVCo work has begun to update the guidelines to specifically support hotel and car rental e-commerce transactions.
“As EMVCo associates, we immediately saw the benefit of extending EMV 3DS authentication request messages with airline information,” Jean-Christophe Lacour, head of merchant services and payments at Amadeus, said in the release. “The travel industry is somewhat different from other e-commerce businesses due to the prevalence of distribution channels and the complexity of booking several travel segments from different providers in one purchase."
Specific travel use cases were studied "to understand the data transmitted at specific touch points," Lacour added. "Right now, it’s even more important our industry combats fraud and keeps payment friction to a minimum."
Members of EMVCo include Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB International and China UnionPay.
