Following the news that the banking industry trade body, UK Finance, is calling for an increase to the contactless payment limit from £45 to £100, please find a comment below from the CEO of the biometric company.
Following the news that the banking industry trade body, UK Finance, is calling for an increase to the contactless payment limit from £45 to £100, please find a comment below from the CEO of the biometric company.
Information Security Buzz (aka ISBuzz News) is an independent resource that provides the experts comments, analysis and opinion on the latest Information Security news and topics
<p>Increasing the contactless payment limit on credit and debit cards does provide a short-term solution to making payments safer and faster under social distancing. However, this proposal from UK Finance may also increase the opportunity for fraudsters to steal larger sums of money from unsuspecting consumers. In order to make transactions simpler and safer, banks should look to payments from mobile devices which can implement biometric technology, such as fingerprints and facial recognition. This would allow organisations to mitigate fraud and secure higher-value transactions in the long-term with user-friendly, socially distant processes.</p> <p> </p> <p>Furthermore, banks should always be mindful that no single authentication method can provide a complete answer to fraud prevention. A layered approach that takes into account contextual data, and make use of new risk-based technologies, powered by AI and ML, and modern identity verification is the best method to spot suspicious activity. This gives them the ability to analyse multiple pieces of cross-channel data from different sources to make real-time security decisions, and prevent fraud.</p>
<p>The pandemic has certainly accelerated the shift towards a cashless economy. The desire to not use germ-carrying cash in our daily transactions is helping drive a widespread change in consumer behaviour – including those who were previously skeptical of going cashless. Touch-free payments have quickly become second nature for consumers to tap their card to pay for goods and services instead of using cash or punching in a PIN to minimise the spread of coronavirus.</p> <p>Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the limit for contactless payments has <a href=\"https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/press/press-releases/contactless-limit-uk-be-increased-45\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/press/press-releases/contactless-limit-uk-be-increased-45&source=gmail&ust=1610019753124000&usg=AFQjCNFF9y2GwmqB98cYEa4gdGXfyL0IMA\">risen around the world</a>, already <a href=\"https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/press/press-releases/contactless-limit-uk-be-increased-45\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/press/press-releases/contactless-limit-uk-be-increased-45&source=gmail&ust=1610019753124000&usg=AFQjCNFF9y2GwmqB98cYEa4gdGXfyL0IMA\">reaching £45 in the UK</a> in March 2020, but the finance industry is currently calling on the Government to increase contactless card payments further to £100. However, with banks increasing contactless limits, they are exposing not only themselves but their consumers to greater levels of fraud. Higher levels of security during the payment authentication process are needed to combat this, and fingerprint biometric payment cards – which confidently link the user to their card – would be the ideal solution.</p>