FIDO and EMVCo Expand 3DS Collaboration

The FIDO Alliance and EMVCo are deepening their partnership, announcing that they are going to collaborate together on refining standards concerning the transmission of FIDO authentication data through EMV 3-D Secure (or “3DS”) messages. The aim is to make this process “scalable and interoperable across the EMV payments ecosystem,” according to a statement from the organizations.

It’s an expansion of a relationship first established between FIDO and EMVCo in 2016, when the industry alliances started working together on authentication specifications for mobile payments. That effort was a response, at least in part, to the rise of mobile payment platforms like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, and was aimed at delivering FIDO standards to the emerging mPayments space. A key focus of the collaboration was the establishment of User Verification Caching standards designed to specify how long an app can maintain a user session before requiring re-authentication, and FIDO and EMVCo suggest their new project will build on that work.

Elaborating on the organizations’ plans, EMVCo Board of Managers Chair Cheryl Mish explained that with EMV 3DS already promoting “more secure, consistent consumer e-commerce transactions across browser and in-app channels, while optimizing the cardholder’s experience,” the integration of “the FIDO Authentication protocol will provide stronger authentication, enhance transaction security and provide a more convenient and simpler authentication experience for cardholders.”

News of the expanded partnership comes soon after the launch of the FIDO2 authentication standard, which will help to deliver biometric and security key authentication to a range of new digital scenarios including web-based logins.