Arcot Newsletter Podcast: Recent Episodes
Meenu Bhatia
The May podcast episode is now live! Tune in to hear James Jenkins, Global Head of Customer Development, and Matt Cooke, GM of Arcot discuss the latest in 3DS. This epidosde focuses on how optimizing 3DS with RCI Codes and ACS routing allows issuers to receive richer data, leading to improved authentication and authorization outcomes like those from the Square | Arcot Case Study. The 3DS Method URL call plays a critical role in allowing merchants to share detailed device and browser data with issuers. Despite its simplicity to implement, many merchants aren't using it. Arcot is dynamically fine-tuning authentication decisions with real-time data via Arcot's Smart Ruleset. This innovation adapts to issuer performance, fraud signals, and merchant behavior to optimize each transaction -- balancing security with approval performance.
The 3DS landscape is undergoing a major shift from a historic "blame game" between merchants and issuers toward real collaboration built on data sharing and trust.
In Arcot's April podcast episode, James Jenkins, Head of Customer Development and Matt Cooke, GM and VP of Arcot, discuss how merchants are now using 3DS, not just to shift fraud liability, but as a communication protocol with issuers. The rise of "data-only" transactions (RCI 06) is fueling this change, improving approval rates while reducing friction for legitimate customers, particularly in the US region where false declines are a big problem. False declines impact trust and loyalty for merchants and issuers alike. When merchants share rich risk signals, they help issuers make smarter, faster decisions.
Arcot's Smart Ruleset is also helping issuers optimize authentication strategies based on changing merchant behavior and transaction patterns without overhauling existing systems. Smart Ruleset is focused on improving approval rates while minimizing fraud exposure. Early adopters are seeing critical advantages in their metrics, including lower fraud, higher approval rates, and a stronger customer experience.
The industry is shifting from a fragmented approach toward data-driven collaboration. The payoff? Lower fraud, higher approval rates, fewer false declines, and smarter risk handling.
Welcome to the March edition of the Arcot podcast. In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke explore shifting perceptions of 3DS, highlighting its rising adoption in the US and the growing recognition of its ability to reduce friction while boosting security. Arcot's AI-driven Smart Ruleset pilot is transforming the rule-writing game, delivering higher authorization rates, reduced friction, and enhanced fraud protection. By replacing manual rule-writing with a data-driven, adaptive fraud prevention strategy, Smart Ruleset is offering a smarter approach to transaction security.
Welcome to the February edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss 3DS myths that continue to permeate the industry, particularly amongst merchants in the US. Leveraging 3DS, as the collaborative tool it was designed to be, leads to fewer false declines, higher approval rates, and gives consumers the fraud protection they want. Listen to this podcast for the highlights or subscribe to Arcot Comms for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Welcome to the January edition of the Arcot podcast!
In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss Arcot’s Smart Ruleset: a game-changer in fraud prevention. Traditional manual rule writing is time-intensive, reactive, and often inefficient in combating sophisticated AI-driven fraud and bot attacks. Arcot’s Smart Ruleset leverages intelligence from across the Arcot Network, enabling a proactive, automated approach to fraud detection and prevention. This evolution transforms what was once a laborious, manual process into a streamlined, intelligent system.
We will be meeting with customers in the coming months to review Smart Ruleset outcomes.
Listen to this podcast for the highlights or subscribe to Arcot Comms for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Welcome to the December edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke look back on 2024 and share some of the year's accomplishments and give their predictions for what's in store for the industry in 2025. Listen to this podcast for the highlights or subscribe to Arcot Comms for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry. We hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the November edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share the Arcot's peak shopping season readiness and the impressive results from our recent A/B testing of Arcot’s Smart Rulesets. For those new to the concept, Smart Rulesets are a game-changer in fraud prevention. Traditional manual rule writing is time-intensive, reactive, and often inefficient in combating sophisticated AI-driven fraud and bot attacks.
Arcot’s Smart Rulesets leverage intelligence from across the Arcot Network, enabling a proactive, automated approach to fraud detection and prevention. This evolution transforms what was once a laborious, manual process into a streamlined, intelligent system. With results demonstrating a significant impact, we encourage all customers to review their outcomes and consider adopting this proactive solution as we move into 2025.
Listen to this podcast for the highlights or subscribe to Arcot Comms for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Welcome to the October edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the highlights and key takeaways from the recent Arcot 3DS events held last week in Dublin and London. We encourage ongoing participation, as feedback has been very positive. Both organizers and attendees benefit significantly from these events, and we aim to make them even more impactful in the future.
Listen to this podcast for the highlights or subscribe to Arcot Comms for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
We hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the September edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins discusses the upcoming Arcot 3-D Secure Summits. The first summit will take place in Dublin on October 22nd, followed by the sixth summit in London on October 24th. These events bring together industry leaders from the 3DS ecosystem, including Issuers, Processors, and Merchants. The key topics revolve around optimizing payments and reducing fraud by leveraging 3DS.
In addition, James provides the key highlights and takeaways from the industry events that Arcot has been part of – the Merchant Risk Council Conference in San Diego and the Merchant Advisory Group conference in Orlando.
Listen to this podcast to get the highlights from this month’s Newsletter or subscribe to Arcot Comms (on arcot.com) for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
We hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the August edition of the Arcot podcast! In this episode, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss how merchants can use the Arcot Scorecard to improve payment authentication outcomes. The Arcot Scorecard provides detailed authentication performance data, offering a comprehensive summary of 3DS performance and comparing it against similar merchants. By using the scorecard, merchants can gain insights into areas where they can enhance their performance and maximize value. This tool highlights transaction flows, and key metrics, and provides comparisons against peers, enabling data-driven improvements.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for your regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the July edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss how merchants and issuers are now collaborating, and sharing real-time data to enhance decision-making processes. By providing issuers with more data through 3DS, merchants ensure a comprehensive view of transactions. This empowers issuers to make better decisions, resulting in higher approval rates for transactions. The shared goal remains clear: streamline legitimate transactions while preventing fraudulent activity effectively.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for your regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the June edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss each step of a 3DS transaction; with a discussion on innovation at each stage, and provide more insights into how merchants today use 3DS primarily for higher approval rates or compliance as opposed to leveraging 3DS as a tool to shift fraud liability. Check out this podcast to learn more!
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for your regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the May edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share updates on the merchant pilots; using 06 and 05 RCI codes to drive performance, upcoming events, and scorecard enhancements.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for regular updates on everything related to 3-D Secure and the digital payments industry.
Hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the April edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share highlights from the recent Arcot 3DS Summit in London. They also cover leveraging AI in the Arcot platform; specifically the AI ruleset.
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Welcome to the March edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss an Arcot to Arcot approach (Arcot 3DSS to Arcot ACS), which results in additional data shared between Merchants and Issuers to realize higher approval rates, less friction, and reduced fraud.
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Welcome to the February edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss optimal 3DS data for both merchants and issuers.
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Welcome to the January edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the major themes that will be relevant to EMV 3DS in 2024 and how this year is set to be transformative for Arcot.
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Welcome to the December edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke talk about the recent VMWare acquisition and provide 2023 year-end reflections.
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Welcome to the November edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss Arcot’s innovative and merchant-focused approach to 3DS that empowers merchants to enhance security, reduce transaction costs, and significantly improve conversion rates.
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Hope you enjoy this edition!
Welcome to the October edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the highlights from the recent UK Summit in London – an open discussion and collaboration across issuers, processors, and merchants, and they share their views on 3DS best practices.
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Welcome to the September edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the upcoming 3DS Summit in London and what to expect, along with the key topics on data-driven execution.
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Welcome to the August edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the EMV 3DS processing recommendations for PSD2 for Merchants/Acquirers and for Issuers, and a few more topics.
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Welcome to the July edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss the Arcot framework for third-party risk insights and a series of topics related to enhancing 3DS performance.
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Welcome to the June edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke discuss two important topics. The first relates to reducing challenge rates through exemptions via Arcot’s Trusted Beneficiary offering. And, the second topic is Arcot Fraud Alerts; a new service where Arcot sends regular alerts to customers on anomalies across the Arcot Network to quickly adapt rules and prevent fraud.
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Welcome to the May edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share the issue of 3DS challenge rates; specifically that they are too high. While PSD2 compliance drove challenge rates higher, we now have an opportunity to leverage data, rules, and exemptions to reduce friction for cardholders. The benefits of this approach are self-evident; cardholders complete more transactions, resulting in more revenue, interchange, and business for merchants.
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Welcome to the April edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share key highlights from the 3DS Summit and discuss program management to help clients make the most of the platform.
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Welcome to the March edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share their perspectives on Strong customer authentication (SCA), which is at the forefront of payment adoption. Get more insights into how we do risk-based authentication, allowing legitimate transactions to just keep flowing with higher approval rates for issuers, which means higher approval rates for merchants, which means that everyone's winning!
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Welcome to the February edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share details of our upcoming Arcot 3DS Summit in London and discuss 3DS best practices.
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Welcome to the January edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share 2022 reflections, provide insights into what’s ahead in 2023, and discuss plans to support clients. We also review industry trends and the rapid advances in robotics and artificial intelligence together with their implications for both digital and payments security.
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Welcome to the November edition of the Arcot podcast! In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share information on the Visa and Arcot payment frameworks, the new self-service customer journey designer, and the latest Arcot Global Scorecard. Listen in to get highlights from the recent Arcot 3DS Summit in the UK, key changes post-sunset of 3DS 1.0.2, and thoughts on the recent events in the world of crypto.
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Welcome to the October edition of the Arcot podcast! This month we mark the end of an era with the sunset for 3DS 1.0.2 which was fully sunset across the schemes on October 18th. As a business, we welcome this transition and the additional data elements and functionality of the new protocol. In this podcast, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share their experience of the transition and also what lies ahead for the new phase of the protocol.
Please subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for your regular updates on everything related to 3D Secure and the digital payments industry.
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Welcome to the September edition of the Arcot podcast. This month, James Jenkins and Matt Cooke share their perspectives from a recent visit to the UK and Ireland, updates on the 2.3.1 protocol, Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (TDEA or 3DES), the updated authentication scorecard, and the importance of implementing 3DS best practices to increase overall approval rates.
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In this edition, we have Matt Cooke and James Jenkins discussing our theme of how 3-D Secure (3DS) works together with data science and data analytics to optimize digital payments.
This month, the Arcot team also provides various product announcements for both issuers and merchants, along with our perspectives from our customer success team, and the updates on our authentication scorecard.
Please consider subscribing to our monthly newsletter to stay updated via email and receive the Arcot newsletter for your regular updates on everything related to 3D Secure and the digital payments industry.
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In this edition, we have Matt Cooke and James Jenkins discussing the 3-D Secure (3DS) optimization with a focus on Delegated Authentication, one of the key tools for minimizing friction during an eCommerce transaction while at the same time reducing fraud. Arcot is actively working with issuers and merchants on Arcot Delegated Authentication Framework to provide the contractual vehicle to support these transactions. This supports other tools such as Trusted Beneficiary, Data Only, and a wide range of available exemptions all designed to make 3DS work better.
We also discuss the increasing problem of fraud attacks on Authorized Push Payments (APP) where fraudsters trick genuine cardholders to complete a fraudulent transaction. We explore how to leverage the Arcot Network to identify high-risk beneficiary accounts before funds are transferred thereby blocking fraud and protecting often some of the most vulnerable customers.
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In this edition, we share updates including EMVCo and 2.3.1, the Arcot Network strategy, and continue our celebration of 25 years of Arcot. With PSD2 and the FCA mandate now fully in force, we continue our focus on optimization; leveraging the Arcot Authentication scorecard to drive higher CSR, ASR, and fight fraud. In addition, Arcot’s enhanced APIs and connectivity create opportunities for deeper integration, leveraging the Arcot Network to score transactions beyond 3DS. Hope you enjoy this edition!