VISA pilots credit card with integrated PIN keypad

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 15:17

Business IT - Technology

Think of it as a natural progression from the CVV2 security code on the reverse of credit cards which have been fairly unsuccessful in preventing CNP fraud it has to be said, and an update to the Verified by Visa scheme which is hit and miss in terms of participating online retailer take-up.

So how does the VISA PIN Card actually make things safer then?

The VISA PIN card works by combining the two concepts of only the cardholder has the card in their physical possession (or they could not enter the code) and only the cardholder knows their PIN (or they could not enter the code.)

Obviously the latter is open to some compromise, but user stupidity is never easy to overcome fully - no matter how advanced the technology the user could always do with an upgrade.

Anyhow, in practise, when entering an online transaction the cardholder presses a buy now button on the retailer website, enters their PIN on the credit card itself and this generates a one-time-only code which can then be used like the CVV2 code to authenticate the payment.

Peter Ayliffe, Visa Europe President and CEO, says "As e-commerce continues to flourish, we and the rest of the payment industry must find ever more sophisticated ways to combat the work of criminals..."

"By combining the technology necessary to create one-time only codes with a standard chip card" Ayliffe continues "we are giving cardholders a truly user-friendly experience and offering issuing banks an unrivalled method of ensuring the integrity of all types of remote transactions – remote banking, online and telephone banking as well as fund transfer requests."

A video of the VISA PIN Card in action can be viewed here.