Bank of Ireland update on Strong Customer Authentication

Bank of Ireland is writing to a range of personal and business customers to apologise for a delay in the rollout of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and to advise them they will receive a refund of a portion of bank charges before the end of the year.

SCA is being introduced in banks across Europe as part of the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2). SCA gives Bank of Ireland customers an extra layer of protection when shopping online as they must use the bank’s mobile app to approve certain payments.

At Bank of Ireland, SCA is now fully in place. In line with the industry in Ireland, we were working towards a full implementation date of 30th June, however, it took longer for us to introduce it than anticipated. We apologise sincerely for this delay.

As a result of the delay, the Central Bank of Ireland required that Bank of Ireland may not charge a full fee for a service that did not fully comply with regulatory requirements (i.e. PSD2 ecommerce SCA). In December Bank of Ireland will refund a portion of bank charges to all personal current account customers and to business current account customers who made an automated debit transaction.

Customers do not have to take any action, and the refund will be paid directly to their accounts in December. The average refund per customer is under €3 and the overall refund cost to Bank of Ireland is €3 million. Where an account has been closed, Bank of Ireland is making a charitable donation which will result in a payment of c.€27k to The Community Foundation for Ireland.

Commenting, Henry Dummer, Director of Everyday Banking, Bank of Ireland said: “While online fraud has been around for many years, the pandemic has seen an increase in activity, with fraudsters targeting consumers and businesses as they spend more time online. We have invested significantly over the years in strengthening both awareness and protection around online fraud and Strong Customer Authentication is an important extra step.

“We are pleased that SCA is now in place for all customers, but it should have been in place earlier. We are sorry for this delay and are writing to customers to apologise and provide a refund. We are also reminding customers to be alert to the risk of fraud, particularly in the run-up to the busy Christmas shopping period.”