EMV is a global standard that defines the interaction at physical, electrical, data and application levels between IC cards (integrated circuit cards) and the devices that process their transactions. This move to an EMV or "smart card" payment system does offer some benefits. Improved security, fraud protection, finer control of offline transaction approvals, and multiple applications to be held on a single card to form an e-purse. To move the United States from a magnetic stripe based card to one that is chip based would take a very long time integrate. So on August 9th, 2011 Visa announced its three part accelerated plan to migrate the chip system:
1. Expand the Technology Innovation Program to U.S merchants. (TIP eliminates the requirement to validate their compliance with the PCI Data Security Standard.)
2. Build Processing Infrastructure that will Accept the Chip.
3. Shift the Counterfeit Fraud Liability. ( Currently point-of-sales counterfeit fraud liability is received by card issuers; liability will shift to the merchant's acquirer)
This EMV technology is the base for these new developing e-wallets. EMV terminals will be used to read data from your smart phone (pre-loaded with all your card information through applications) and charge the "best-fit" card from a storage cloud. The real question is how safe is it to keep your cards on your cell phone, and even more importantly how safe are your cards sitting in a massive cloud? What are your thoughts on this new card based system?
Citations:
http://www.gemalto.com/emv/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV#Differences_and_benefits_of_EMV
This is very interesting. I am very familiar with digital payments and I would recommend you guys looking into the square card. The square card allows users to pay for purchases at businesses they go to regularly. The users link their cards to the card case app on the smart phone and when they visit that business everything is done without the swiping of a card or receipt. —The square card is a way to make purchasing for consumers more transparent. The square app takes 2.75 percent of every purchase. Users link their credit cards to the Card Case app on their iOS or Android device. When they visit a merchant that’s Card Case-enabled, they use the Card Case app to open their tab. It is great new type of digital payment that could spark a lot of revenue in the future.
ReplyDeleteI'm a slow adaptor when it comes to new technology such as this, thus the "e-wallet" hasn't won me over yet. I would question the security of my card or account numbers in a storage cloud. I tend to keep my digital payments to a minimum and even then it's only in trusted areas.
ReplyDeleteI as well am a little uncertain about putting my card information online, much less on my phone. Obviously Visa will probably put a lot of time and effort into the protection of the information within the cloud. Yet, there are many hackers that put just as much effort into breaking down these systems to show the faultiness of them. It will be interesting to see how long it will take a mass data theft from one of these cloud systems.
ReplyDeleteI for one am ok with the smart card concept. The military already uses this system for their identification cards. They store your basic information and allow you to access certain government computers by plugging in your smart card into the reader. I believe that if all the data was stored on the chip and no numbers were visible on the card then theft would be less of an issue since a consumer could cancel the card and render the chip useless. As far as storing my card information on a phone or in a cloud, I would not be comfortable with that. I think that if information is available on my phone then there is an increased chance of others remote accessing my information or if I misplaced my phone, they could have all my financial information in one place. I am fine with my traditional leather wallet; I will not be using an e-wallet anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteKyle White
Storing online information can be scary, but the whole purpose to switch to this new system is to increase security. The EMV chip itself in traditional cards will revolutionize the digital payment system. As for e wallets, i guess it just really comes down to how much you trust your selected app provider.
ReplyDelete-Digital Payments Team