MasterCard Engages Payment Industry Partners on Safety, Security Solutions

While consumers are very concerned about safety and security around electronic payments they also have a strong expectation that it should be convenient and fast to pay for what they want.

This was a key point of discussion at a fraud and processing workshop hosted by MasterCard in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Addressing this, Johan Gerber, group head, Processing Product Management, MasterCard sayid that as the online shopping environment becomes more user-friendly, consumers expect the payment process to be similarly safe and simple.

Shoppers tend to resist multiple levels of authentication, even though they provide added layers of security, so finding the right balance between managing fraud risk and ensuring a consistently positive consumer experience has been a challenge for e-tailers for many years.

Industry experts, local financial institutions, and merchant representatives discussed international and South African trends in fraud detection and prevention, innovation and security in payments through processing, and the future of e-commerce, galvanising the industry to protect every payment and device from attack by fraudsters.

Anonymity in the online environment makes it particularly attractive to fraudsters but MasterCard utilises the power of big data and innovative security solutions to protect consumers, deploying an unobtrusive, network-wide suite of tools for merchants and issuers to protect users from criminals.

“At MasterCard, our priority is to safeguard our customers, cardholders and partners from fraud, so we continuously work hard to make sure that our network is the most advanced at detection and prevention. Wherever possible, we make sure that businesses and consumers are protected from fraud before it occurs, thanks to verification tools like EMV and SecureCode, as well as monitoring processing and updating real-time fraud scoring for merchants,” said Gerber.

The introduction of EMV chips into MasterCard payment cards has reduced counterfeit fraud by up to 80 percent in Africa, Europe and Canada, and MasterCard has worked relentlessly with the global industry to ensure that consumers are protected from fraud when using payment cards at ATMs, points of sale, and on e-commerce channels.

By the end of 2014, SecureCode helped MasterCard authenticate two billion online transactions a year globally.

The company continues to drive investment in cyber intelligence and security capabilities, as well as expanding cooperation with regional teams to establish comprehensive fraud prevention and detection solutions that are tailored to each market in which it operates.

More recent innovations include biometric authentication, with voice, fingerprint and facial recognition elements are increasing payment security while also making it simpler for cardholders to use in an increasing digital payment world.

MasterCard is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories.

MasterCard’s products and solutions make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone.