Musings about my first love - Technology !
VISA payWave - next wave in payment mode?
Monday, July 14, 2008
Reacting to the success of RFID as payment mode, VISA has branded its RFID card as VISA payWave. Called so as one just needs to wave his/her card near the accepting POS terminal for transaction to be carried. To ease the faster payment, one doesn't even need to sign for most of the purchases made under $25.
According to the VISA website, over 32,000 retailers from 20 top brands accept Visa payWave payments, and the list is rapidly growing. Visa payWave is intended to make it simple to save time every day—at quick service restaurants, drugstores, movie theaters, convenience stores and more. The participating issuers are BB&T, Chase, INOVA FCU, SunTrust and Wells Fargo as of now. Some of the major names of merchants who are already accepting the card are Mc Donalds, CVS Pharmacy, 7-Eleven and Jack in the Box. The complete list of eligible merchants is provided at its sitepage -
http://usa.visa.com/paywave-merchants/
http://usa.visa.com/paywave-merchants/
Well there are lot of benefits for users over here, like
- Checkout is faster and easier for cardholder as no swiping needs to be done in RFID cards
- VISA allows no signature for most purchases under $25
- As you remain in control of your card during the transaction, the risk of fraud is greatly reduced
- VISA is giving the Zero Liability this card too, which ensures you are not responsible for fraudulent or unauthorized transactions.
- These cards also have a magnetic stripe so in case RFID reader isnt there, you can pay by normal swiping method.
But then it needs to be seen how much faith do cardmembers show in RFID payment methods. There has been recent reports of people being able to forge the RFID cards as what a legitimate merchant terminal can read from the card, a malicious scanning device can also read without a consumer’s consent or knowledge. Hence the design takes the prime importance over here. The most basic info of the card, the name of the cardholder is abused the maximum with these devices. There has been a good article on the vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID enabled cards at blog of RFID Cusp, you can access it here -
http://www.rfid-cusp.org/blog/blog-23-10-2006.html
http://www.rfid-cusp.org/blog/blog-23-10-2006.html
Visa has also announced that it is currently migrating to an enhanced global specification, Visa Contactless 2.0, to further support the growth of Visa payWave around the globe. The new global contactless specification is based on the international EMV chip standards, enabling Visa to take advantage of the industry's most advanced cryptographic techniques for Visa payWave transactions, regardless of where the card was issued or where the transaction takes place.
"Visa payWave is an excellent example of Visa's approach to innovation and our ability to extend the value of Visa to new stakeholders and new market segments," said Elizabeth Buse, Global Head of Product at Visa Inc. "As the payments ecosystem expands, so does Visa's opportunity to deliver innovative products and services to a diverse set of stakeholders."
Sources: VISA websites
Labels: New Launch, Technology
posted by Jas @ 10:58 AM,
2 Comments:
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At 7/28/08, 7:53 AM,
Pilot-Pooja said...
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will surely save a lot of time and paper work, but not sure how safe it is!!
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At 9/4/08, 6:57 AM,
Pilot-Pooja said...
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Somebody is too busy with best frd's wedding.)
