Everything You Need to Know for Safe Online Shopping
Since January 2021, the European Payment Services Directive (better known by its acronym, PSD2), has established how Europeans shop and pay online, with the aim, among others, of protecting our money and personal data.
You may have already experienced this: when shopping on certain websites or in some mobile apps, you need to identify yourself with your mobile phone. We'll explain how and why.
For your security
All banks in the Eurosystem must comply with this legislation, and at ABANCA we strive to make it as simple as possible. Just one click is enough. Pay attention!
Shop
Use your ABANCA cards to pay at any ecommerce. Most of the time, you won't have to do anything else.
Authorize
For your security, sometimes you'll need to authorize the purchase. Do it quickly, easily, and securely with your app.
Enjoy
We dedicate many resources so you can shop with the peace of mind of knowing that you're in the best hands.
If you already use our app
Hundreds of thousands of people use our app every day to manage their money. If you're one of them, congratulations! Your online shopping will be very, very easy.
You just need to make sure you have notifications enabled (you can do it from here if you're browsing on your mobile). When you make a payment for an online purchase, and if the ecommerce requires it, we'll send you the operation confirmation through a notification in your ABANCA app. You'll be able to make your payments in the most convenient and secure way, and keep buying whatever you want, wherever you want.
This security check is one of the requirements of the EU's PSD2 directive, the Strong Customer Authentication, an extra layer of security for your online purchases.
If you (still) don't use the app
If for some reason you don't want to download the ABANCA app 🤔 keep in mind that the process to validate your purchases won't be as simple.
No matter which bank or card you use, to shop on certain sites you'll necessarily have to validate the operation. At ABANCA, if you don't use the app, we'll ask you to enter the PIN of the card you're using for the purchase. In addition, we'll send you an SMS with a one-time password, so it's important to make sure we have your up-to-date mobile number.
And remember: please stay alert if you receive one of these messages and it doesn't correspond to a real purchase, and always follow our online security recommendations.
Answers to frequently asked questions
We've grouped together the questions you might have when using your ABANCA cards to pay for an online purchase. We want you to have all the information at hand.
Different factors are taken into account: the information provided by the merchant, how often you use your card, the amount of the purchase, previous transactions, the device you're using… and many other data points we use to guarantee your security without affecting your shopping experience.
Most likely, you didn't see the notification we sent to your mobile banking app to authorize the purchase. Open that notification, identify yourself as you usually do to access mobile banking, and confirm the operation. If you haven't received it, make sure you have notifications enabled. If you're reading this from a mobile phone, you can do it right now at this link.
If you still don't receive notifications, on the screen where you should confirm the operation, you also have an option to indicate that you haven't received the notification and you can move on to other alternative methods to authorize the purchase.
For your security, banks can only allow transactions at merchants that comply with the PSD2 regulation if we have some way to verify that it's really you making the purchase. For this, the best alternative is to install our mobile banking app. If you don't want to or can't do this, you'll need to provide us with your mobile phone number and keep it up to date.
