Bermuda-based First Atlantic Commerce (FAC) and Scotiabank have joined forces to offer 3-D Secure services to online merchants in seven countries across the English-speaking countries in the Caribbean.

Through this partnership, Internet merchants in the Caribbean will now be able to support 3-D Secure for Verified by Visa and MasterCard® SecureCode on their websites for the first time.

The service will be available to merchants in Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, Anguilla, Turks & Caicos and Guyana, with roll-out to an additional 11 countries in the 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 3-D Secure is to reduce fraud through the verification of the cardholder at the time of payment in a 'Card-Not-Present' environment, such as the Internet.

"When implemented, 3-D 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.