Diagram showing the Issuer Domain, Interoperability Domain and Acquirer Domain in 3D Secure

3D Secure is the abbreviation for Three Domain Secure (Issuer Domain, the Interoperability Domain and the Acquirer Domain), used to increase security in transactions made over the internet. These systems, known to cardholders as 3D Secure, are given their own unique names by payment schemes (MasterCard, Visa, etc.).

What do the domains in the Three Domain expression mentioned above mean?

  • Issuer domain refers to the cardholder and the card-issuing bank.
  • Acquirer domain refers to the actions of the gateway and the acquirer (merchant) bank.
  • Interoperability domain refers to all the connection services involved during the transaction
    (Directory Server & ACS – Access Control Server).
Diagram illustrating the three domains of the 3D Secure authentication process

When shopping on a website and reaching the 3D Secure payment step, the security application supported by the website is displayed on screen. (Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode, etc.)

Example of a 3D Secure verification screen displayed during online checkout

The 3D Secure application names used by payment schemes are listed below:

Visa                : Verified by VISA (VBV)

MasterCard : MasterCard SecureCode

Diners  : ProtectBuy

Amex  : SafeKey