Abstract: A system and method for facilitating an online transaction between a customer and a merchant, wherein receipt of an input from a merchant server defining a specified payment transaction causes a link generation module to generate a URL link uniquely associated with an online data capture resource for the specified transaction, such that activation of said link by a customer device facilitates a data capture process causing payment data to be provided to a payment module for completion of said specified financial transaction via a payment service provider.

Abstract: A method (preferably, performed by an authentication server) of authenticating a request made by a first party of a second party, comprising: receiving from the first party a request and a first symbol string obtained by the first party from the second party, the first symbol string being determined from the request; generating a second symbol string in dependence on the request; authenticating the request of the first party in dependence on the first and second symbol strings.