Merchant Account Cardholder Verification Explained:
What is Cardholder Verification? Cardholder verification and identification is a service provided by Visa, Mastercard, and American Express that confirms additional details about the purchaser before processing a card-not-present transaction. Cardholder verification is increasingly used in e-commerce transactions to validate the buyer’s identity and reduce the risk of chargebacks.
Visa’s cardholder verification program is called “Visa Secure”, while Mastercard’s is called “Mastercard SecureCode” and American Express’s is called “SafeKey”. In many cases, the extra verification takes the form of a single-use numeric code sent to the buyer via email or a mobile device, which the buyer then enters in order to confirm their intent to make a purchase. Cardholder verification is intended to serve a similar purpose to CVV2 codes and AVS, but it is a more streamlined process that is closer in practice to two-factor authentication.