Visa to upgrade security of PH credit cards

Global payments firm Visa has mapped out a three-year program to strengthen Philippine payments security and bring down fraud incidents to record lows, boosting confidence in a market that traditionally considered cash as king.

“Payment security has always been a key pillar of focus for Visa and we believe it is a shared responsibility among financial institutions, merchants, consumers and the government to secure the commerce ecosystem. We acknowledge the need for risk and security of payments to evolve with the changing payment landscape so that we can stay ahead of these technological advancements,” Dan Wolbert, Visa country manager for the Philippines and Guam, said in a press statement on Friday.

“Our commitment is to build trust and confidence among our clients, consumers and merchants in the payments ecosystem so that the country can embark on this digital and cashless journey,” he added.

One of the key pillars for the security initiatives is to empower cardholders so they can have control and management over their Visa accounts through online platforms. As a whole, the road map focuses on a number of key initiatives that should enable security to evolve at the same time as technology.

“We are already seeing reduction of fraud rates in the Philippines. Through the release of the road map, we will take the lead in championing security for the Philippines, and ensure we address any gaps in payment security for the country,” Dan added.

On top of the existing payment security solutions, Visa advocates the adoption of tokenization and 3-D Secure 2.0 (3-DS 2.0), a new standard for e-commerce.

Tokenization helps to eliminate sensitive data, so the 16-digit number on the card will not be stored anywhere by the merchant, bank or payment gateway. This is seen to reduce fraud rates on e-commerce in the same way that EMV chip has limited fraud in the face-to-face environment.