Why does the 3DS popup appear on every payment when using Adyen?

Problem Statement

When you use Chargebee's Custom Checkout with the Adyen gateway and call authorizeWith3ds to enable 3D Secure authentication, a 3DS overlay or popup may appear even for card transactions that qualify as frictionless flows, that is, transactions that don't require active customer authentication.

This adds unnecessary friction for your customers, because the 3DS challenge screen appears even when the card issuer has already approved the transaction silently.

Solution

The Dynamic 3D Secure configuration in your Adyen Dashboard controls this behavior. By default, Adyen might apply 3DS to all transactions. When you set the Request challenge field to Prefer not, Adyen skips the 3DS challenge unless the card issuer or a regulation requires it.

Configure Dynamic 3D Secure in Adyen

Follow these steps to configure Dynamic 3D Secure in Adyen.

1. Log in to your Adyen Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Revenue & Risk > Dynamic 3D Secure.
3. For each rule, set Request challenge to Prefer not.
4. Save your changes.

With this setting, Adyen still applies 3DS when:

• A regulation requires it, such as PSD2 in Europe.
• The card issuer mandates it.
• It improves transaction outcomes, such as a liability shift.

For cards that support frictionless authentication, the 3DS overlay no longer appears unnecessarily.