Visa offers cards with keypads to fight online fraud
by Steve Ragan - Nov 17 2008, 13:18
Visa issues new card to fight fraud.(IMG:Visa)
Some of Europe’s largest banks will take part in a pilot program to help prevent fraud, by joining Visa in a rollout of a new type of credit card that replaces the static CVV (CVC) code, and instead generates a one-time transaction code.
The Visa one-time code card has been developed in conjunction with EMUE technologies and was launched in June as a tool to combat the threat of card-not-present (CNP) fraud. Four banks, including MBNA, a Bank of America company in the UK, Cornčr Bank in Switzerland, Cal in Israel and IW Bank in Italy, will all start to pilot the new solution over the next few months.
The front of the card looks like a conventional payment card, while the back has an eight-digit alpha-numeric display and a button keypad. The card incorporates a technology that generates a secure one-time only code displayed to the cardholder via the integrated alpha-numeric screen.
The validation and authentication process requires three steps. When shopping online or using an online banking service, users activate the authentication process by pressing the appropriate option button on the card’s keypad. Next, they enter their PIN number into the keypad, which triggers the third step, a one-time-only code that is used to verify the user and complete the transaction.
This is crafty stuff, and while it's currently only in Europe, it shouldn’t be too long before we can expect to see it rolled in the United States. This new card can also be used to combat telephone scams, as the bank can generate its own authorization number, which can be checked on the card and used to verify the bank’s representative.
EMUE and Visa are tight-lipped on how the security works exactly on the cards, but consider that it is Visa, and it should be decent to say the least (256-bit perhaps).
If you want to learn more, here are some videos worth checking out.
http://lab.emue.com/videos/scenario1_2.wmv
http://lab.emue.com/videos/scenario2_2.wmv
Comment on this Story