At a glance
The percentage of customers who gave up at the 3DS challenge prompt instead of completing it. Distinct from declines (issuer rejected) and successes (issuer approved). PSD2 SCA forces 3DS challenges on most EEA card-not-present payments above EUR 30; abandons are pure UX-driven lost revenue.
| What it counts | COUNT(StatusId = X among 3DS-challenge sessions) ÷ COUNT(3DS-challenge sessions) × 100. Numerator: customers who triggered 3DS challenge and bailed (closed the popup, navigated away, timed out). Denominator: all challenge-triggered sessions. Frictionless 3DS sessions (no challenge) are excluded from both. |
| API endpoint | /api/transactions with EciValue / 3DS-flow indicators. |
| Currency | Currency-neutral (rate). |
| 3DS frictionless | Excluded from this metric (no challenge presented, nothing to abandon). Frictionless rate is its own KPI on the roadmap. |
| Refunds / disputes | Not relevant. |
| Recurring rebills | Not applicable to merchant-initiated rebills (MIT exemption usually applies, no challenge). |
| Channels | Online only. Smart POS card-present is chip-and-PIN, no 3DS in the same sense. |
| Time window | 7D vsP. |
| Alert trigger | >15% absolute, OR +25% relative spike. Sentiment thresholds: good ≤15%, warn ≤30%. |
| Roles | owner, finance, operations |
Calculation
Calculated automatically from your Viva Payments data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading.Worked example
A pan-EU online apparel retailer (“Avantgarde Mode”) on Smart Checkout, EUR primary, GBP secondary, full PSD2 SCA compliance. Window 26 Apr 26 to 02 May 26.| 3DS flow | Sessions | Outcome breakdown |
|---|---|---|
| Frictionless (no challenge) | 4,820 | 4,720 success, 100 issuer-decline (excluded from this card) |
| Challenge presented EUR | 1,180 | 980 completed → 920 success + 60 issuer-reject; 200 abandoned (X) |
| Challenge presented GBP | 240 | 200 completed → 188 success + 12 issuer-reject; 40 abandoned (X) |
- 16.9% abandon rate is just above the alert threshold. Healthy benchmark: 10 to 15%. Causes when above threshold include: (a) challenge prompt rendered in a language the customer doesn’t read fluently (German customer hitting Greek-language issuer prompt), (b) mobile UX issues (3DS popup blocked, redirect loop), (c) unfamiliar issuer flow (one-time SMS code, biometric prompt out of context).
- 77.2% frictionless rate is healthy. EU intra-EEA card-not-present typically achieves 70 to 85% frictionless when device + transaction risk data is fed cleanly to issuers. Below 70% suggests weak risk-data feed (missing browser fingerprint, generic
MerchantTrxId). - GBP abandons proportionally higher than EUR (40 of 240 = 16.7% vs 200 of 1,180 = 16.9% raw, but the absolute count on smaller GBP volume is more sensitive). UK-issuer 3DS flows differ from EU-issuer flows; the customer experience can confuse EU buyers shopping a UK-based retailer.
- Each abandoned session is a near-direct revenue loss. Unlike declines (where the customer might retry with another card), abandons usually mean session abandoned. At Avantgarde’s average ticket of EUR 95, 240 abandons cost roughly EUR 22,800 in the 7-day window.
- JP Morgan acquisition relevance: 3DS UX is unchanged. The challenge flow is determined by the issuer, not by Viva or its parent. Acquisition does not move this metric.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with 3DS Abandon Rate |
|---|---|
viv_decline_rate | The cousin metric (issuer rejected vs customer abandoned). Different fixes. |
viv_success_rate | Complementary view (success + decline + abandon = 100%). |
viv_top_decline_reasons | If reasons include 3DS_REQUIRED or similar, exemption configuration is suspect. |
viva_payment_methods | Method mix often correlates with abandon rate (Apple Pay / Google Pay = lower abandon, raw card entry = higher). |
viva_revenue_by_country | Country-mix often explains rate movement (UK customers on UK-issuer challenges abandon less than EU-customers on UK-issuer challenges). |
Stripe stripe_3ds_abandon_rate (where present) | Cross-PSP abandon comparison. |
viv_total_transactions | The volume base behind the rate. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in the Viva Payments Dashboard: viva.com/business/account/login. Closest comparable view:Viva Business → Sales → Reports → 3DS (where enabled, shows challenge / frictionless / abandon split)If 3DS reporting isn’t enabled in your Dashboard view, request it from Viva merchant support; on most accounts it’s available by default. Why our number may legitimately differ:
| Reason | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Time zone | Boundary days off | Athens / London / customer-issuer timezones vs UTC. |
| Late completion | Theirs lower over time | A customer who comes back hours later and completes the challenge flips X to F retroactively in Dashboard; we update on next sync. The gap closes within 24 hours. |
| Excluded sessions | Marginal | Some challenge sessions abandon before issuer interaction (network error during ACS redirect); these are sometimes counted as E rather than X, depending on Viva’s classification. |
| Comparison | Expected relationship | When divergence is legitimate |
|---|---|---|
viv_threedsecure_abandon_rate ↔ Stripe 3DS abandon rate | Often within 2 to 5pp | Customer behaviour at challenge prompt is largely issuer-driven, not PSP-driven; cross-PSP differences usually reflect challenge / frictionless mix, not pure abandon behaviour. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
“What’s a healthy 3DS abandon rate?” 10 to 15% is healthy for EU intra-EEA card-not-present. 15 to 25% is a signal to investigate UX. Above 25% is acute and usually points to one of: localization issue (challenge presented in wrong language), mobile popup blocked, redirect loop, or a recent change in issuer flow that broke familiarity. “How do I lower abandon rate?” Three levers in order of impact. (1) Improve frictionless rate: feed strong device + transaction risk data so the issuer skips the challenge. Reach for 75 to 85% frictionless. (2) Use SCA exemptions where eligible (low-value < EUR 30, MIT, recurring, trusted-merchant beneficiary). (3) On the challenge itself, ensure the merchant-name and transaction-amount displayed in the issuer prompt are clearly your brand (not a confusing legal entity name). “PSD2 SCA, why is this challenge happening at all?” PSD2 mandates Strong Customer Authentication on EEA card-not-present payments above EUR 30, with limited exemptions. The issuer chooses whether to challenge or grant frictionless. The challenge is the issuer’s responsibility, not the merchant’s; you can only influence the probability of challenge via risk-data quality and exemption claims. “My recurring rebill abandons, do they count?” No. Merchant-initiated rebills (MIT) are generally exempt from SCA challenges, so there’s nothing to abandon. If an MIT rebill ends asX, it’s typically a network glitch rather than a challenge abandon, and it shouldn’t be in this metric (Viva classifies MIT failures as E).
“3DS abandons drag my Viva success rate, can I exclude them?”
The success-rate computation already accounts for them in the denominator. You can’t make them disappear without also unwinding the SCA-mandated challenge flow, which would expose you to PSD2 liability. The right move is to lower the abandon rate, not to exclude it from your KPIs.
“Apple Pay / Google Pay abandons, are those in here?”
Wallet-method payments often go through a frictionless flow because the wallet token already represents strong authentication. When they do hit a challenge, abandons are very rare (the customer is already in their phone OS, biometric prompt is familiar). Wallet-method abandon rate is typically 2 to 5%; raw card-entry abandon rate is the dominant driver in this metric.
“JP Morgan ownership, did challenge UX change?”
No. The challenge UX is determined by the issuer, not Viva. JP Morgan acquisition has no effect on this metric.
“Mobile vs desktop abandon rate?”
Mobile typically 1.5 to 2x desktop abandon rate. Causes: (1) popup blockers more aggressive on mobile browsers, (2) app-switch back to issuer banking app and forward to merchant browser is fragile, (3) limited screen real estate makes some prompts unreadable. A per-device-type split is on the roadmap.