Card Scheme Providers Improving the Customer Buying Experience but Need To Balance the Risk
It is now the middle of January 2016 and there have been notable changes in the payments industry, predominantly associated with MasterCard and Visa. Monica Eaton-Cardone was featured in the Global Banking & Finance Review, offering her take on how these changes have impacted the industry.
“Europe’s card market compromises some 1.5 billion payment cards, with a combined value of nearly €3 trillion”. In order to maintain their joint market share of 86%, MasterCard and Visa have upper their game. MasterCard has announced their ‘zero liability’ promise and Visa has issued new Checkout offerings to further differentiate themselves from their competitors, such as PayPal and Apple Pay.
MasterCard and Visa’s new features have been introduced with one thing in mind, consumers. Visa’s new checkout service aims to make it easy for customers to checkout online.
Visa’s Checkout service has seen over 6 million user registrations – a 92% increase of sign-ups since the start of 2015. It promises shoppers a simpler way to checkout online, using just three easy clicks. The online payment service has already secured high-profile partners such as fast-food giant Taco Bell, multinational consumer electronics giant Best Buy and bookseller Barnes & Noble, as well as Australian cinema chain Hoyts and sports ticketing company Ticketek.
Similarly, MasterCard’s new “Zero liability” promise aims to protect consumers from fraudulent transactions.
MasterCard launched a recent ground-breaking promise to improve and expand the minimum standard for consumer protection against unauthorised transactions across the globe, with one single rate. Its Zero Liability promise, developed in line with issuers and regulators, offers greater protection for users, subject to any local laws that may be applicable.
However, one of the main issues in the card not present industry to date is fraud. In particular, friendly fraud. As technology becomes more sophisticated, so do criminals. But as consumers demand frictionless payment methods, they become more at risk of fraud. However, as mentioned in this article, merchants should continue to embrace easier payment schemes such as Visa Checkout, they just need to ensure they mitigate risk of fraudulent chargebacks.
Read the article in full here.
