Orme highlights payment card fraud has been a huge problem for a sustained period of time and the steps currently being taken to stop it are not effective enough and with PSD2 requiring everyday transactions to become subject to two-factor authentication in an attempt to combat fraud, including contactless payments, Biometric authentication has a key role to play. As pert of our security experts comments series, David Orme commented below on the role of biometrics to support PSD2 and combat fraud.
David Orme, SVP at IDEX Biometrics:
“Card fraud is a serious and increasingly urgent problem. Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) reports that in 2016, fraud across payment cards, remote banking and cheques totalled an astonishing £1.38 billion, an increase of 2% on the previous year. The overwhelming majority (80%) of this fraud involved payment cards; there was a particularly large (30%) increase in the proportion of cards lost and stolen, and these alone accounted for losses of £96.3 million1. In other words, payment card fraud has been a huge problem for a sustained period of time and the steps currently being taken to stop it are not effective enough. However, biometric card authentication could be the answer to this problem.
The second Payment Service Directive (PSD2), requires everyday transactions to become subject to two-factor authentication in an attempt to combat fraud, including contactless payments. Biometric authentication for card payments is set to play a key role in this authentication process, and will help shift payment authentication methods away from what we know or can remember, to who we are and what we can physically prove. In turn, this will remove the ability to easily share or have ‘PINS’ fraudulently stolen and deliver greater security levels to combat fraud.”
