If you use a credit card, you’ve probably seen more and more stores start asking you to insert your card into a chip reader when you pay, instead of swiping. If your card has a chip on it (and most new ones do now), you’ve gotten acclimated to this new method of payment. If you’re wondering why payment has changed, better security to help combat credit card fraud is the answer. With the rise of online purchasing, card not present fraud prevention is more important than ever, since there’s no way to really verify who is doing the purchasing. Many companies across the world are trying to reduce that risk. The United States spends under about $8 billion a year trying to fight or get back losses from credit card fraud. There are other methods at play however, to keep consumers and businesses alike safe from the menace of credit card fraud.
How Bad Has the Problem Gotten?
The United States spends around $8 billion a year because of credit card fraud. In 2014, over $16 billion was wrung from businesses worldwide, because of payment card fraud. And because more and more purchases are done online, it’s hard to work on card not present fraud prevention (though there are some methods, such as sending a verification email to the user after every purchase made with the card).
Given that every half a minute a little over $900,000 is spent globally online and an additional $275,000 is spent from our phones, you can see the problem that many credit card companies and consumers are facing. Every year, it seems, Cyber Monday gains additional force and we hear about physical businesses fretting about brick-and-mortar sales. In 2012, Cyber Monday was responsible for almost $1,500 million in revenue and that number is only expected to increase.
On the other hand, over $35 billion is expected to be lost by 2020 thanks to payment card fraud. In 2014, there were over 1,500 data breaches worldwide and over one billion data records were breached. That’s pretty sobering.
How Can Consumers Protect Themselves?
Common sense is often key. Make sure you’re paying a verified retailer — you want to avoid those sketchy websites and be careful about foreign websites as well. Keeping your PIN number secure is also important — at stores, banks, and also where you keep that information. Don’t choose an easy pin like 1234. Sure, you want your pin to be easy to remember — but not that easy. If an email looks suspicious or a webpage asks for your private banking information, be wary. Make sure you know exactly what information you’re entering and who it’s going to before going ahead with it. Hackers are savvy and can use all kinds of tricks to have you give up your information.
Getting chip technology is also significant — stay up to date with new advances and security measures.
How Are Businesses Helping Protect Themselves and Consumers?
Making sure they have strong point of sales materials and payment processing services can go a long way towards keeping their financial records and credit card information secure. Some businesses are also investing in a payment gateway service, which creates a digital payment gateway, letting companies process their sales online securely.
These digital payment gateways provide transaction authorization services and guarantees the consumer a secure transaction online, reducing the amount of credit card fraud that happens online. Businesses get the security of knowing that the customer purchasing the items is legit, by verifying customer authenticity via text or email. This goes a long way towards working on card not present fraud prevention. They can even evaluate chargeback risk and creates a profile to track transactions and gather smart data. These gateways are also controlled by the business using them, so they don’t have to worry about third-party breaches to a larger company.
As businesses and consumers alike get smarter about credit cards and their usage, card not present fraud prevention and other methods, we can help mitigate the amount of credit card fraud and loss, which can hurt both parties.