A recent survey confirms identify theft and fraud is of top concern to consumers when using a credit card.
Visa – who is hoping to change the status quo – recently held a security summit in Washington to devise improved methods of protecting financial data.
Visa’s Chief Enterprise Risk Officer Ellen Richey said it’s important for the industry to increase investment in smarter credit cards and authentication methods while better managing current intelligence.
“Visa’s global fraud rate recently hit a historic low — at just over 5 cents for every $100 transacted, down more than two-thirds from the levels of 20 years ago,” said Richey.
“And more than 99 percent of large merchants have confirmed they do not store sensitive cardholder data.”
Meanwhile, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff talked about building back the public’s trust using two methods.
“One is risk management. There is not going to be anybody who comes up with a magic solution that guarantees that there’s not going to be fraud, other kinds of theft or actual attacks on our cybersystems and our payment networks.
“And if we search for that illusory guarantee, we’re either going to wind up overinvesting, or we’re going to wind up raising expectations and disappointing them in a very damaging way.”
According to Chertoff, the second method involves recognizing there isn’t just a single solution.
“In fact, there are a series of solutions, and not all fit every kind of problem. At the high end, we worry about very sophisticated attacks on our national critical infrastructure.
“Much of the problem can be dealt with looking at, frankly, less sophisticated strategies, and we ought not to wait until we solve the hardest problem to take steps to solve the less hard problems…”
(Via Politico)
