Card Company's boosting Payment Security with Mobile

Whoever thought that one day, paying with green paper would be viewed as primitive as a horse and buggy? We seem to be getting closer to that time, especially since the security of making payments via smartphone is always being improved.

One way is with fingerprint scanning. Some smartphones already have this biometric feature. But what about credit cards and biometrics? Visa is currently experimenting with biometrics, but nothing yet has been deployed to the public. Nevertheless, a credit card company trying to develop something with biometrics will likely need to get involved in the smartphone arena.

There will always be the consumers who want to stick to the old-fashioned method of using cash, just like there are always those strange people who insist on buying the kind of stamps that you must lick (or wet with tissue paper) rather than the self-stick ones. But hopefully, credit card companies will cater to both kinds of people amking the new technology stupid simple.

If the credit card companies come out with biometrics tied into the mobile device, it will likely be a fingerprint scanner vs. face or voice recognition, but the fingerprint password will be sufficient security after long term testing.

New technology is never carved in stone, but let’s at least get it out there and see how it works. Let’s see how new technology like biometrics in a mobile (like Apple pay) can combat credit card fraud.

In the meantime, card companies and consumers (and banks) must continue to wrestle with the rampant crimes involving credit cards. Recently, MasterCard teamed with Syniverse, a mobile technology company, with the goal of stifling fraudulent use of credit cards.

MasterCard’s approach relies upon the smartphone geolocator. The company’s plan enables the card to be used only if it’s within a certain range of the owner’s smartphone. Though at first, this sounds fool-proof, it has a flaw: What if the thief is within that range? Obviously, if the card is swiped a thousand miles away from the holder’s mobile device, the thief will fail. This new technology hinges upon the thief being outside that range.

A perk of this new technology is that it eliminates the hassle of the holder having to notify the company that they’re traveling so that transactions won’t be declined—because the transaction will occur near the holder’s smartphone—unless a thief makes off with the smartphone and just happens to get out of range.