Direct from American Express hospitality industry webinar, hotels number one protection from card not present fraud is American Express SafeKey®. SafeKey leverages the global industry standard, 3-D Secure®*, to detect and reduce online fraud by adding an extra layer of security when Card Members pay online.

How to mitigate 3rd party authorization chargeback risk? Merchant best practices:

• Ensure the cardholder participated in the initial transactions. Safekey is the best method to prove that, making signatures irrelevant.
• Get written authorization of what expenses the cardholder will allow.
• Put cardholder name on the folio.
• Show where cardholder opted in to all policies, including damages, cancellation etc.
• Authorization must be CARD NOT PRESENT.
• Use solution that includes cardholder name in the authorization response; retrievable record.

American Express SafeKey

How does Amex SafeKey impact the customer shopping experience? The cardholder may have some or no difference in the checkout experience, based on many factors, including prior online shopping history. The cardholder may be asked authentication question(s) to confirm it’s really the cardholder.

How does Amex SafeKey impact merchants?

• Fraud liability for “It wasn’t me, I didn’t authorize it” goes away as liability shifts back to the issuer.
• For business to business, where cardholder billing and shipping address frequently vary, cardholder authentication plays an important role not available with four digit CID security code validation only.
• At this writing, American Express merchants do not receive a specific interchange discount as may be available with other card brands.

How can merchants adopt the Amex SafeKey service?

1. Enroll your company on the American Express web site. https://network.americanexpress.com/globalnetwork/safekey/us/en/merchants-acquirers
2. Receive e-mail from SafeKey Certification Team with your SafeKey ID and next steps.
3. SafeKey Certification Team gets approval from Acquirer.
4. Acquirer and SafeKey Certification Team complete required setup.
5. Activate 3-D Secure on the application. (Ecommerce shopping cart, payment gateway, or ERP.) Both payment gateway and application must support the service.

* 3-D Secure is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association in the United States and other countries.

Want to add American Express SafeKey to your business and get a great third party authorization form solution all included? Contact CenPOS global sales and integrations reseller, Christine Speedy, 954-942-0483 for more information.