We’ve spent about the last month or so writing code to help prevent against fraudulent orders. This has meant a huge re-write of parts of Modernbill previously thought to be “demented and wrong”. Along the way we’ve tested it pretty much completely. Today we put the code (along with tonnes of other cool stuff) live and we sat back and watched payments coming in.

All works perfect, as expected. However I noted certain Visa card payments going through detailing that the user was not enrolled. This is normal enough. However I have a personal BOI visa card that I use online a fair bit to buy various bits ‘n’ bobs. I went through our order process and came to paying and I was not presented with anything asking about 3D secure. I thought this a bit odd, as my work Visa card is enrolled and I get presented with the “Verified by Visa” where it asks for my password.

So to find out what was going on I ring BOI. I explain to the nice lady what I’m talking about and she replies “I haven’t heard of that, it isn’t an option on our cards.”. I go into a bit more detail and she goes off to ask a supervisor. She comes back saying “He hasn’t heard of 3D secure either, but we googled for it and printed off all the details and have sent them onto our security department.” The mind boggles. So BOI have not heard about or implemented 3D secure?? WTF??? It really is apparent to me now that AIB are years ahead of the other banks in Ireland. I’m going to keep a close eye on other Banks cards over the coming few days and see which banks have actually signed up for 3D secure and which haven’t. I’ll make a list of banks to avoid getting credit cards from then.