SIA, INFORM Team Up To Advance Digital Payments Authentication

European tech firm SIA is forming a technological partnership with German software innovator INFORM to launch a digital service to speed up the authentication process for online payments across Europe.

“Joining forces with INFORM, we help our customers speed up the adoption of strong customer authentication for safer online purchases,” Gabriele Boni, global service line cards director at SIA, said in a statement on Thursday (Nov. 12). “Consumers benefit from the real-time transaction risk analysis with fast and frictionless online shopping, leading to a simple and secure user experience.” 

The SIA and INFORM initiative is part of the compliance with the new Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and also helps protect shoppers from online fraud. 

The new service will benefit European banks, payment service providers and other financial institutions (FIs) by accelerating the authentication process for online payments, in line with PSD2 security standards.

Boni added that the solution was integrated in SIA’s infrastructures and will launch quickly to “ensure PSD2 compliance.” 

The initiative will be powered by INFORM’s RiskShield, an advanced risk evaluation solution. The fraud-fighting infrastructure uses an innovative scoring engine to analyze risks in real time for all payments.

Using the RiskShield Risk-Based Authentication (RBA) tool, SIA can provide step-up verification for suspicious transactions and facilitate a seamless process for low-risk activity.

“Our ability to provide RBA to both issuers and acquirers has given us a unique position on the market,” said Roy Prayikulam, senior vice president risk and fraud at INFORM. 

“INFORM’s multi-channel approach to fighting fraud, together with SIA, has proven to be successful, and we look forward to helping more financial institutions meet the PSD2 compliance regulations. I am certain this partnership will continue to flourish and look forward to many more joint projects,” Prayikulam added.

SIA is being acquired by Nexi, the Italian digital payment company, for $5.4 billion. The deal terms give Nexi’s shareholders 70 percent of the combined new company and SIA investors 30 percent. Combined, it will be one of the biggest payment providers in Europe.