Will Convergence, and New Tech, Help Reduce Fraud?
Introduction
Continuing our exploration of payment industry headlines to deliver the latest news, we found a striking connection between two seemingly unrelated articles, one notably focusing on “reducing payment fraud.”
12 Tips for Merchants to Fight Credit Card Fraud at the Point of Sale
The first appeared on the Small Business Trends website, and is a very useful, practical listing of “12 Tips for Merchants to Fight Credit Card Fraud at the Point of Sale.” Among the helpful pointers are the suggestion to actually compare signatures on the slip (or screen) versus the card — a practice which has fallen out of favor — and watching out for large sales, or seemingly distracted customers, rushing a purchase right at closing time.
Know Your POS and Equipment
We also liked pointer #10, which says “Know Your POS and Equipment,” and further notes that “sophisticated criminals can access information on the magnetic strip of a credit card when it is swiped at checkout. This process is called ‘skimming,’ and it requires an actual attachment to the terminal that reads the card. To combat this, make sure you know what your payment processing equipment looks like and how it should work…”
Barriers to Payments Convergence
At AVPS, we think you should definitely know your payment processing equipment! And we thought of this tip when reading a recent industry newsletter article saying that “barriers piggyback payments convergence.”
New Anti-Fraud Solutions in Convergence
While this convergence introduces fresh fraud risks, not addressed in the “12 Tips” tailored for traditional American card payments, the second article suggests that such changes could ultimately enhance security. It highlights that payment experts are proactively seeking more secure solutions, citing a pilot program in Germany as an example. This program employs an enhanced user profile to generate an anonymous authentication ID, effectively concealing the user’s true identity while still enabling numerous mobile payments.
Conclusion
Sadly, there will always be fraud, but it may be that new innovations in making consumer payments even easier for you to process will ultimately benefit you, and your customers, from a security standpoint, as well.
But whether you need to shore up security for a traditional card payment set-up, or seek to upgrade to on-the-spot processing or anything else, you shouldn’t hesitate to contact your AVPS rep today.
In fact, that’s Tip #12 in the first article: “When in doubt — call!”
