Electronic Commerce Indicators

Electronic Commerce Indicator (ECI) conveys the result of the customer (cardholder) 3‑D Secure authentication. This indicator is used for registering whether the authentication was initiated, the authentication outcome, and which party—either the issuer or the merchant—is responsible for approving payment processing and will take potential financial responsibility if a chargeback occurs. An ECI is defined by the issuer on the side of the (Access Control Server, ACS) or the card network based on the result of the authentication attempt; however in some cases, there can be no ECI assigned—for example, if the customer has specified a wrong one-time code (within the challenge flow) or the issuer has identified a high risk of fraud when checking the customer information (within the frictionless flow).

Electronic Commerce Indicator (ECI) conveys the result of the customer (cardholder) 3‑D Secure authentication. This indicator is used for registering whether the authentication was initiated, the authentication outcome, and which party is responsible for approving payment processing. An ECI is defined by the issuer or the card network; however in some cases when the payment is declined, there can be no ECI assigned.

Depending on the authentication result, the operation processing can be either continued or declined, which is also reflected by the ECI. When the operation is declined following the results of the authentication, payment processing can continue, in particular if the capability of payment retries or cascade payment processing is set up.

ECIs are applied regardless of the protocol version and the flow of the 3‑D Secure authentication; along with that, different card networks use different coding variants. In the ecommpay payment platform, ECIs are generally represented as two-digit codes with a leading zero, but in certain cases other formats can be applied. The ECI values are sent to the merchant web service in final callbacks with the information about payment processing in the eci parameter of the operation object.

Different card networks use different coding variants, while in the ecommpay payment platform, ECIs are generally represented as two-digit codes with a leading zero, and in certain cases other formats can be applied. The ECI values are sent to the merchant web service in final callbacks with the information about payment processing in the eci parameter of the operation object.

The following table provides the information about the ECIs of different card networks for basic payment scenarios. For the information about other situations, contact the ecommpay technical support specialists.

Table 1. ECI values
Situation Responsible party ECI
The authentication is completed with the customer identity verification.

The operation processing can be continued.

 Issuer
  • American Express—05
  • Mastercard—02 (in general cases), 07 (during the registration of the COF purchases; details)
  • Visa—05
The authentication is initiated on the part of the merchant and acquirer but cannot be performed by the issuer.

The operation processing can be either continued or declined depending on the issuer's decision.

 Issuer
  • American Express—06
  • Mastercard—01
  • Visa—06
One of the following cases is identified:
  • The authentication is not initiated on the part of the merchant.
  • The authentication is initiated on the part of the merchant and acquirer, but while performing it, the issuer could not verify the customer identity.

According to the merchant's decision, the operation processing can be continued.

 Merchant
  • American Express—07
  • Mastercard—00
  • Visa—07