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Worried About SCA Compliance with Stripe? You’re covered.

The EU’s new payment collection requirements go into effect soon. If you’re worried about compliance, things just got easier. Even if you’re not, you just got a security upgrade!

The Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements of the EU’s Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) take effect 14 Sept 2019. That’s a little less than a month from now if you’re reading this fresh on publication. If you’re collecting payments in WordPress with the Ninja Forms Stripe add-on, the next time you upgrade you’re going to see a significant change in the payment process.

Do business in the EU? The new SCA requirements will impact everyone to a degree. If you're in the EU & worried about compliance, we have something to help.

If you have no idea what the PSD2 or SCA are, this is probably just going to be an interface/experience change for your users. We’ll let you know what to expect below.

If you are involved in the buying and/or selling of products or services in the EU, you’re probably under pressure to make sure you’re SCA compliant. If you’re one of our Stripe users, we’ve got really good news for you.

The newest Stripe add-on update for Ninja Forms makes SCA compliance with Stripe a breeze.

Does SCA compliance with Stripe even need to be on my radar? Isn’t PSD2 a Star Wars character or something?

If you’re not sure what the PSD2 is at this point, you can probably just skip ahead to the next section to see what’s changing with Stripe. Unless you’re in the EU. If you’re in the EU and collecting payments with your WordPress forms, definitely keep reading unless you’re already up to speed on the changes.

What are PSD2 and SCA?

The Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is a set of regulatory changes to the way electronic payments are handled in the EU. It took effect on 13 Jan 2018, so it’s not new. The PSD2 includes what’s called Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements. The SCA requirements are set to take effect on 14 Sept 2019.

If you’re interested in the nitty gritty detail, the European Banking Authority and Stripe are good places to dig deeper. But in a nutshell, these are new requirements/standards for electronic payments in the EU. The intent is to establish a new legislative framework that makes electronic payments easier to handle and more secure.

Do they apply to me?

If you buy or sell products or services in an EU member state, these regulations apply to you directly and you need to be compliant.

Even if the new regulation doesn’t apply to you directly, they’ll affect you indirectly. Don’t worry, that’s a good thing. The changes aim to make how money is being handled more transparent, and the process more secure. That’s a win for you as a buyer or a seller doing business with the EU.

What’s changing with Stripe?

The Ninja Forms Stripe add-on has gotten a bit of a facelift with the 3.1.1 update. Here’s what’s changing.

  • The Stripe Checkout modal is gone.
  • Your users will now be redirected to Stripe when your payment form is submitted.
  • Credit card fields have been completely removed from the builder. This will not affect you unless you are still using Stripe payment forms built before February 2018 using the old credit card fields.

No more modal

If you're a Stripe user, change is coming to comply with the EU's new SCA requirements. Come see what's changing!

Basically, Stripe decided that it would be better to redesign the payment process than to try to retrofit the modal. The Stripe Checkout modal has been sunset and will no longer appear when your users submit their form. Instead, they will be redirected to Stripe to input payment information and complete the transaction. On completion, they will be redirected back to the same page on your site.

Still have our old credit card fields on your form itself (not in the modal)? Read:

We removed credit card fields from Stripe payment forms back in February 2018. From that point on, older forms built using credit card fields were still supported. Form security reasons, that’s no longer the case. If you’re using forms with on-page cc fields, they no longer exist. Your payment form will still submit, redirect to Stripe, and function normally… but there will now be blank spaces on your form where they used to live. Heads up to go fix that, and please update regularly! 🙂

How does this make SCA compliance with Stripe easier?

Instead of having to worrying with modifying your forms, all the tools you need to make sure you’re SCA compliant will be available within Stripe. To learn more about how to make your payment process SCA compliant, whether or not you qualify for an exemption, and quite a bit more, visit Stripe’s SCA compliance page.

Comments are below. Fire away with any questions you might have about the new Stripe changes!