Group advocates multiple card fraud protections

The Electronic Payments Coalition (EPC) recently announced that it favors multiple dynamic fraud technologies as a means of combating payment card fraud.

EPC officials said the determination comes on the heels of a report in which personnel analyzed information from 20 countries possessing varying levels of Europay, Mastercard, and Visa (EMV) adoption while using a mix of PIN and signature authentication.

EPC investigators learned chip-enabled smartcards have dramatically reduced counterfeit card fraud, revealing in countries where chip cards comprise at least 75 percent of payment cards, counterfeit fraud has declined by 84 percent over the last 11 years.

“This report confirms what we’ve said all along: You can’t rely on a single security technology to effectively protect consumers,” Molly Wilkinson, executive director of EPC, said. “Everyone involved in these transactions must work together to prevent future data breaches and stop increasingly sophisticated criminals from stealing sensitive financial information.”

The EPC said research showed there was no clear relationship between total card fraud and a country’s preference for using signatures or PINs in conjunction with payment cards, which emphasized the need for choice—and not a government mandate—when it comes to payment-card security.

Banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions are investing millions of dollars in new technology in order to better protect consumers from data breaches that compromise their sensitive information, officials said. Four times as many voters trust financial institutions over retail stores to develop new, more secure payment technologies.