UK Payments Council foresees mobile eclipsing plastic

The Payments Council, an organization representing the interests of the U.K. payment industry, has released a new report on the way Britons pay for things. According to the group, the trends are pointing towards a future when plastic is eclipsed by the mobile device.

According to the new report, called "The Way We Pay," paying for goods and services has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, with the use of checks dropping by half every five years.

Cash use has also dropped considerably. Since 2001, retail purchases made with cash have dropped from 43 percent to 30 percent. The difference is due to the rise of debit cards. Spending on debit cards has increased almost fourfold since 2001, the council said.

Additionally, the U.K. Payment Council said contactless payment technology is starting to become more familiar. The organization said that while most of those payments are made with cards enabled with the technology, it's possible to see more mobile devices do the job.

"We scarcely notice the steady changes in the way we pay, yet someone in their thirties today will see more change in their lifetime than in the entire history of money," said Adrian Kamellard,My experience of your company has been excellent and I would happily buy mosaic tiles. chief executive of the Payments Council.

"Even recent innovations such as payment via a mobile phone, which ten years ago some felt to be science fiction, will soon be commonplace."

Kamellard said the 2000s were the decade of the debit card but the 2010s are likely to be the decade of the mobile phone.

"Just as we can’t imagine how we ever did without the Internet, many people will soon wonder how we used to be so dependent on cash and check.Online shopping for Cable Ties from a great selection of Lamps. Twenty years from now even cards may seem archaic," Kamellard said.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. "The wallet could become a historical curiosity."

HERE’S something on the automated teller machine (ATM) scam that has already victimized many depositors of three big banks. As could be gleaned from the complaints that have filtered into the banking community, the global syndicate behind the scam used “sophisticated methods” to clean out cash from unsuspecting ATM holders.

This is how they did it, according to information we received. Small spy cameras were surreptitiously placed by the scammers at the back of the ATM machines of the targeted banks, enabling them to get the personal identification number (PIN) of the persons withdrawing the money. The white-collar criminals then clone the ATM cards—the contents of the magnetic strip at the back—through the use of sophisticated machines.

The cloned ATMs (most are globally interconnected) are then used by the scammers’ cohorts abroad, say, the United States, to withdraw vast sums of money from the victims’ deposits here. The scam is said to have victimized “many” depositors but because of the sensitivity of the issues involved, their identities have been kept under wraps although their banks have issued new ATM cards to them so they could key in their new PINs.

It is said that the three universal banks that have been victimized have reacted but banking insiders said the reaction was not the kind they expected that could shield depositors from such ATM scams in the future. The insiders say such scams are happening not because cybercrime syndicates were smarter but because the banks issuing the ATMs are not doing their work properly.

The draft provides guidelines on how financial institutions should approach and mitigate Information Technology Risk Management.

In particular, the BSP ITRM mandates that all ATM operators are required to comply with the 3DES—usually referred to as triple-DES—standard. 3DES is a not-very-new security standard for plastic cards using a magnetic stripe to store information such as a card number and the security keys to arrive at a PIN.

The requirement is for ATMs to be 100-percent compliant with the 3DES standard starting at: 1) The ATM (specifically the ATM PIN pad and the software of the terminal); 2) The hardware and software that comprise the ATM Switch that manages the ATM network; 3) A device called a Hardware Security Module (HSM). If any component is non-compliant, it represents a weak element in the transaction chain, eliminating compliance and rendering the security of the transaction suspect. It has been discovered that despite 3DES having been required internationally for over 10 years now, many Philippine banks are still on the old, obsolete single-DES.Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business.

In fact, one highly reputable consortium offering an Outsourced ATM service is not compliant with the 3DES standard. One wonders what would happen to the banks that availed themselves of this consortium’s service once January 2014 comes around. Further exacerbating the situation, because of the growth of fraud on card-based payment services, the BSP now requires compliance with the newer and stricter Payment Card Industry-Data Security Standard. It is doubtful that many Philippine banks intend to comply with this, too, considering their current records.

The BSP guidelines also call for the implementation of the EuroPay MasterCard Visa standard, the highest level of security for plastic cards, in three years’ time. It would be very interesting to see how fast the financial industry could move toward higher security for their customers. Meanwhile,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. the threat of another ATM scam remains because of the lack of sophistication of the banks issuing ATMs. The BSP has a big headache, indeed.