Banks, Financial Institutions, Retailers and Governments will be the winners. This will reduce Fraud, increase customer satisfaction and provide agility to the Issuers to react quickly in case of panic.
As an example, today if a bank suspects fraud or compromise, it will cancel and replace a whole Bin or all the cad base. Tedious process, cancelling the card (sometimes the customer is traveling) replacing it, sending it using courier; huge expense!
With Tranwall, the bank will only have to block all cards. That will override all customers’ choice at that point in time. All cards will be locked. However, the legitimate customers will still use their card by unlocking their cards and activating one transaction at a time. So, at no cost, the bank reacts and then it has all its options open as to whether or not, depending on the magnitude of the fraud to replace a specific card or a whole portfolio. Amazing isn’t it?
Some systems will be redundant, but the fight against Fraud will need all initiatives. Issuer-driven systems including risk assessments based on computational models, authentication systems with Pin & token as well as SMS notifications may or may not be required depending on the scenario.
However, a customer controlled system is the ultimate tool to reduce fraud.
Yes, the problem today is the number of sometimes-conflicting technologies. So many concepts, so many new solutions and of course most of them will vanish in a few years with the exception of a few. It is legitimate to assume that any one of those could vanish.
So, the Issuer banks, financial institutions, distribution and Governments cannot confidently chose a technology and have the assurance that it will not be made redundant before recouping the investment.
However, look at the direction this is all going. It is all going to be mobile; that is the view of the majority of payments experts. It is all going to get closer to the customer; look at the Loyalty wallet by Square, look at the functionality of the Display Card. And of course, the customer is going to be more and more involved in this process.
This piece of technology is here now and complies with these trends!
It’s scary for the customer to be wandering with a constant clear and present danger leaving him or her with an open risk all the time. With the hacking trending very high, it is going to be more and more challenging for normal people to just carry a card.
We all have experience with merchants literally taking a copy of our card by swiping it into the cash register, after they have swiped it on the POS. While we are fairly confident the POS transaction complies with industry standards (PCI suite), the swipe on the local merchant machine is not. So wherever we visit a merchant with our payment card be it physically or on the net, we are exposed and prone to compromise our card. So having your card blocked by you all the time and only unlocked seconds before we need to make a transaction takes away all this insecurity.
The Customer decides well ahead of the transaction itself, as opposed to some complex central systems deciding in real-time or well after the fact.
Very few countries, apart from the US have implemented the ‘Zero Liability’ for the customer in case of fraud and identity theft. So if the customer takes the hit anyway, it is only fair that he/she is involved in protecting their interest by having a role in combatting fraud relating to their own money.
And the Research is here to clearly show that the Cardholders are willing to assist their financial institutions in the fraud prevention process (ACI Worldwide study 2012).
The trends show a future where the customer is the center of gravity of the business. So the battle is going to be: who’s going to involve the customer, so that he is in the driver seat?
By achieving that today, the Tranwall system is a leap in the future and a glimpse of what tomorrow could look like.
This is a new system, designed by Tranwall, a technology solutions company headquartered in Hong Kong, which basically allows the cardholder to lock his card so nobody can use it, or enable it so he himself can use it. The customer has the option to allow it only where he is (blocked in all other countries), only for the type of transaction he is about to do (Purchase, Cash, Internet), and also to only allow one transaction and the card is mute again after that one transaction. Basically, the Customer is in control!