Global 3D Secure rates: Country data comparison

Sourced internally and anonymized, the data we’re presenting in this article came from our payment fraud and optimization recommendations, as well as managing authentication itself:

1. 3DS authentication rates,

2. 3DS challenge authentication rates,

3. frictionless authentication rates.

Fraud and payments professionals can leverage this knowledge to improve their performance across different regions, as well as manage culture-specific expectations.

To find out more about these metrics, please download Ravelin’s Global Payments Report 2025.

Average 3DS success rates – country head to head

First off, let’s look at the 3D Secure success rate – which refers to the rate of success of 3D Secure authentication as a proportion of all payments sent to authentication.

In other words, the 3DS success rate refers to the overall 3DS authentication success rate, whether there has been a challenge or not.

Ravelin sourced and compared data from 37 countries and here are the results:

1. United Kingdom

2. Lithuania

3. Netherlands

4. Ireland

5. Iceland

6. Slovenia

7. Greece

8. Spain

9. Luxembourg

10. Italy

11. France

12. Sweden

13. Bulgaria

14. Estonia

15. Australia

16. Poland

17. Finland

18. Austria

19. Hungary

20. Germany

21. Slovakia

22. Cyprus

23. Canada

24. Croatia

25. Latvia

26. Malta

27. Romania

28. Portugal

29. Czech Republic

30. Denmark

31. South Africa

32. Norway

33. Belgium

34. Brazil

35. India

36. China

37. United States

    

Average 3DS challenge success rates – country head to head

Where there has been a 3D Secure challenge, what percentage of cardholders successfully passed the challenge, thereby authenticating themselves?

The 3DS challenge success rate is defined here as the rate of successful 3D Secure challenges as a proportion of all 3D Secure challenges issued.

And here are the rankings for all 37 of our countries:

1. United Kingdom

2. Ireland

3. Italy

4. India

5. Brazil

6. Germany

7. France

8. United States

9. Canada

10. Netherlands

11. Poland

12. Sweden

13. Slovakia

14. South Africa

15. Spain

16. Portugal

17. Australia

18. Luxembourg

19. Belgium

20. Greece

21. Estonia

22. China

23. Bulgaria

24. Iceland

25. Czech Republic

26. Lithuania

27. Romania

28. Norway

29. Finland

30. Croatia

31. Denmark

32. Malta

33. Slovenia

34. Hungary

35. Latvia

36. Cyprus

37. Austria

What are the likely reasons why some countries are faring better than others?

Catherine says, “The things that stand out to me immediately are that the UK, Ireland and India are all used to authentication. Having a challenge put in front of you as a consumer in one of those countries has been happening for well over a decade...

So people are more quick to follow instructions and take the action requested. I think this is true of all four of them and also a really positive reflection of how well the issuing banks are doing with the 3DS infrastructure on their side. And personally I’m really happy to see Italy performing so well knowing that pre-covid, cash was the dominant payment method in the Mediterranean country."

Commenting on the bottom four, she notes, “Latvia stands out to me. We’ve talked about how Baltic countries are used to authentication but perhaps merchants and banks in Latvia are still using other forms of authentication that aren’t 3DS. It’s worth noting that some of these countries that don’t perform as well in the challenge rate put through more frictionless traffic. For example, Austria has 50% 3DS challenge success rate but 76% frictionless rate.

But regardless, I’d advise merchants who see similarly low rates to talk to their 3DS providers on strategies to improve these rates.”

Frictionless authentication country comparison

Finally, it’s interesting to consider the frictionless rate, especially because it indicates how many are enjoying shopping and payment journeys that are not interrupted by checks.

The frictionless rate we’ll compare below is defined as the rate of authentication attempts were authenticated without a challenge.

The country rankings for frictionless are:

1. Lithuania

2. Slovenia

3. Bulgaria

4. Iceland

5. United States

6. Netherlands

7. Austria

8. Portugal

9. Greece

10. Finland

11. Italy

12. Cyprus

13. Malta

14. Hungary

15. Luxembourg

16. Brazil

17. Estonia

18. Latvia

19. Ireland

20. Sweden

21. Germany

22. United Kingdom

23. Slovakia

24. Romania

25. Spain

26. Belgium

27. Croatia

28. Poland

29. Australia

30. China

31. France

32. Czech Republic

33. Norway

34. South Africa

35. Canada

36. India

37. Denmark

    

    
    

“These results,” says Catherine, “make it obvious that merchants are not taking full advantage of the opportunities for frictionless authentication.

There are cultural differences between these countries, as I mentioned earlier. But it’s safe to say that almost all countries do appreciate less friction when it comes to payments.

Well done, Lithuania! They are performing very well, topping the frictionless rankings as well as being second of 37 countries for 3DS success rate.

Earlier, we talked about certain countries being used to authentication and being challenged because it made people feel secure. It’s interesting to see Lithuania and Iceland perhaps moving away from that, with a really high frictionless rate.

Perhaps that’s a sign that their merchants have more faith in 3D Secure as a way to secure transactions without the friction. Shoppers are more savvy too, understanding that even when there is no friction, there is robust infrastructure to secure their accounts and cards. In a way, it’s the opposite of the USA because shoppers in the Baltics tend to view a 3DS challenge as a sign that the merchant is looking out for shoppers' interests and protecting them.

Bulgaria and Slovenia have also done well although the payment culture seems different to the other pair we’ve looked at. Perhaps here it is a matter of banks being more confident, or that merchants are sending the right traffic to 3D Secure.

Worth noting is that South Africa and India have their own SCA requirement. We would expect there to be a slightly higher challenge rate because of this.

In Denmark, MobilePay is used for pretty much everything. Because of this, not as many transactions employ 3D Secure and therefore merchants and banks may have less incentive to learn to make the most of this technology. MobilePay does have its own authentication method built-in.

Parting thoughts

On the back of these findings, Catherine has some advice for merchants:

“Remember that 3D Secure compliance does not mean always introducing challenges. Doing 3DS well means you can find that sweet spot between protecting your revenue from fraud and staying on card schemes’ good books on one side, and providing a smooth shopping experience on the other.

To better understand how to do this, talk to your 3DS partner today.

Make sure you’re aligned on:

• What’s working

• Why it’s working

• How it’s working

• What’s not working

• Why it’s not working

• What can be improved

To discover more granular data as well as advice around Secure Customer Authentication – PSD2, payments fraud and 3DS, download the Global Payments Report 2025.

Related content

• Case study: Paylolly: Getting to market fast with Ravelin 3DS

• Webinar on-demand: Mastercard and Ravelin share research findings around PSD2, managing payment flows and authentication exemptions

• Video on-demand: 3D Secure: Why you should care (with Scalapay and Ravelin)

• Ravelin Insights: PSD2 and SCA

• National Payments Vision: Is the UK abolishing PSD2 SCA?

• What do PSD3 and PSR mean for your business?

• Case study: Glovo – Winning on 3D Secure with Ravelin