How do you balance startup agility with global scale? Arcot GM Matt Cooke shares how the Arcot business evolved from a niche player into a standalone Broadcom division to lead the 3-D Secure (3DS) market. Matt explores global 3-D Secure trends, contrasting the regulatory landscape of Europe with the revenue-optimization boom in the U.S., explaining why American merchants are rapidly adopting 3DS. Plus, discover how Arcot’s SaaS consortium model leverages AI Smart Rulesets and industry benchmarking to turn payment security into a revenue driver.

Merchants and issuers are heading into the holiday season with growing confidence in 3-D Secure, as data-only (RCI-06) and TRA-based (RCI-05) transactions mature and deliver stronger authorization performance. Merchants are shifting from using 3DS mainly for liability protection to using it as a true data-exchange channel, while issuers adopting The Arcot Smart Ruleset are seeing meaningful reductions in fraud and friction driven by automation. Enabling these capabilities promptly is critical, as waiting only sacrifices valuable fraud savings and authorization improvements when they matter most.

The Arcot Dublin and London 3DS Summits highlighted a clear shift in the industry. Merchants are now using 3-D Secure as a performance driver to boost approvals, enhance experience, and reduce fraud. Momentum is growing around Data-Only and Acquirer TRA, with richer data from merchants enabling smarter, frictionless decisioning from issuers. Meanwhile, The Arcot Smart Ruleset has gone live, marking a turning point in intelligent authentication. It's delivering measurable gains -- cutting fraud losses, improving approvals, and reducing friction -- that amount to real revenue savings. Arcot brings a cross-network vantage point, thousands of banks, billions of transactions, using data to strengthen decisioning.

This episode gives a preview of Arcot's upcoming 3DS Summits and explores how AI is reshaping payments security. With fraudsters using it to scale attacks, Arcot leads the charge in payment security in launching an adaptive ruleset. Discover how The Arcot Smart Ruleset -- which leverages decades of vast transaction data from The Arcot Network -- offers issuers a scalable, adaptive, data-rich approach to combat today's sophisticated fraud, reduce false declines, and improve customer experience.

Arcot’s August podcast explores how The Arcot Smart Ruleset is revolutionizing authentication. Powered by 20+ years of transaction data, advanced machine learning, and real-time network signals, this innovation makes smarter authentication decisions in milliseconds – helping issuers block more fraud, approve more legitimate transactions, and cut down false declines. The episode also highlights how 3DS Data-Only flows are gaining traction, giving issuers the richer context they need to improve fraud detection and transaction approval rates.

In Arcot's July podcast, hosts James Jenkins, Head of Customer Development, and Matt Cooke, General Manager, explore how 3-D Secure is evolving from a regulatory obligation to a performance driver across global markets. They unpack how merchants and issuers are moving beyond compliance and using 3DS to reduce false declines and improve approval rates. Arcot's Smart Ruleset, which uses machine learning to optimize authentication decisions, is delivering stronger fraud prevention with minimal friction. This episode shows how 3DS is becoming a smarter, more strategic part of the payments experience.

In Arcot's June podcast, James Jenkins, Head of Customer Development, and Matt Cooke, GM examine the current wave of large-scale adoption of 3DS that’s transforming the protocol into a performance asset and revenue enabler across the ecosystem. Arcot's latest pilot with Square exemplifies what’s possible when there is smarter data-sharing between merchants and issuers. Meaningfully higher approvals without added risk, thanks to intelligent routing and high-quality data upstream.

Arcot is also showcasing how to deliver smarter authentication with the innovation of Arcot’s Smart Ruleset. Trained on billions of transactions and device profiles on The Arcot Network, Smart Ruleset is delivering powerful results at scale: reduced fraud, improved approval rates, and a more seamless customer experience, all while maintaining regulatory compliance.

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 epidose 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.