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MasterCard reveals biometric plans for password-killing protocol
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MasterCard has outlined plans for a new authentication standard designed to end the use of passwords in online payments, saying that the protocol could be released as early as next year.
The firm says the new standard, which is being developed in cooperation with Visa, will move security infrastructure beyond the PC era, “supporting emerging technologies and changing consumer needs”.
The new protocol could be adopted in 2015 and will gradually replace the current 3D Secure protocol. “[R]icher cardholder data … will result in far fewer password interruptions at the point of sale”, said MasterCard.
In the event that an authentication challenge is needed, cardholders will be able to identify themselves with the likes of one-time passwords, or fingerprint biometrics, rather than committing static passwords to memory.
“All of us want a payment experience that is safe as well as simple, not one or the other. We want to Read more…
France Plans To Prohibit Cash Payments Over €1,000
French actor Gérard Depardieu gesturing to Vladimir Putin after receiving a Russian passport.
One of the best things about covering payments news is that you never run out of stories where various myopic governments attempt to restrict the flow of cash in a squeeze for revenue.
France becomes the latest as Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault plans to erect new controls on cash transactions in order to tighten up tax collection and meet the country’s optimistic budget deficit target of 3% of GDP. The government needs euros and they need some fast.
In the government plan labeled “Fight against fraud,” France’s fiscal residents would see the cash transaction limit decrease from €3,000 to €1,000 per purchase. However, in a nod to the exiled wealthy and what Wolf Richter calls the “Depardieu exception,” those fiscal residents of a country other than France would have their cash transaction limits reduced from €15,000 to €10,000 per purchase. Legislative measures could be Read more…
Pilot program explores a ‘cashless society’
This is not good news as there are a lot more cons than pros in this debate
Aaron Rosenblatt, Rapid City Journal
Bernie Keeler, a mechanical engineering student at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, demonstrates how to buy an item using biometric payment Tuesday at the Miner’s Shack snack bar. Nexus USA is piloting the Smart Pay system on the Mines campus.
School of Mines students and all of Rapid City could soon be at the cutting edge of a technology that developers say will eliminate the need for cash, IDs and maybe even car keys.
“We’re hoping that this is the future,” Al Maas, president of Nexus USA, said Tuesday at a news conference at Mines. “The applications for this are beyond your imagination.”
On Tuesday, mechanical engineering student Bernie Keeler showed just how easily the system works. After grabbing a Gatorade and a sandwich at the Miner’s Shack, he paid by swiping his index finger through Read more…
Is a cashless society inevitable?
An RCMP officer holds Canada’s new $100 banknote, which is made from plastic polymer and is designed to last longer and thwart counterfeiters. (Fabiola Carletti/CBC) Sweden and several other countries are experimenting with cash-free transactions, a trend that is fuelling debate about the need for tangible currency.
Readers were quick to offer their two cents onFriday’s editorial about the idea, “The International movement for the end of cash” by CBC’s Brent Bambury.
The majority of commenters were resistant to the idea of a cashless society, citing everything from decreased privacy and higher-tech crime to corporate control and technological vulnerabilities.
- “Without strict laws, too, a cashless society will be one in which you have no fiscal privacy. Far from being more secure, intangible assets that Read more…
The “cashless society” and Total Monetary Surveillance
Photo Credit Infowars
Economic Collapse writes: Most people think of a cashless society as something that is way off in the distant future. Unfortunately, that is simply not the case. The truth is that a cashless society is much closer than most people would ever dare to imagine. To a large degree, the transition to a cashless society is being done voluntarily. Today, only 7 percent of all transactions in the United States are done with cash, and most of those transactions involve very small amounts of money. Just think about it for a moment. Where do you still use cash these days? If you buy a burger or if you purchase something at a flea market you will still use cash, but for any mid-size or large transaction the vast majority of people out there will use another form of payment. Our financial system is dramatically changing, and cash is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. We live in a digital world, and national governments and big banks are both encouraging the move away from paper currency and coins. But what would a cashless society mean for our future? Are there any dangers to such a system?
Those are very important questions, but most of the time both sides of the issue are not presented in a balanced way in the mainstream media. Instead, most mainstream news articles tend to trash cash and talk about how wonderful digital currency is.
For example, a recent CBS News article declared that soon we may not need “that raggedy dollar bill” any longer and that the “greenback may soon be a goner”…. Read more…
Surviving the cashless cataclysm
InSweden, just 3% of the economy is powered by coins and paper money. Public buses don’t accept cash, churches have installed card readers to take donations, and there are even some bank branches that refuse to take your money, opting instead to deal with electronic transfers only.
The European average is 9%, and in theUS, the credit card motherland, the percentage is still more than twice that ofSweden: 7%. If you stop and think about it, though, none of these figures are particularly surprising. With the rise of credit cards and Read more…
Coming to America soon “Biometric ID And The Coming Cashless Society
National ID cards which contain your biometric information are currently being given to all of India’s 1.2 billion residents! This is an unprecedented advancement towards a big brother styled government who tracks and traces everything you do. As these Orwellion developments continue let’s fight it at every step of the way by refusing to play along. When it comes to Read more…
CBN’s quest for a cashless economy
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently pegged a limit of daily cash withdrawal and lodgment with commercial banks by any individual and corporate customer to N150,000 and N1 million respectively, effective from June 1. This latest development, according to the apex financial regulatory authority is coming on the heels of increasing dominance of cash in the economy with its implication for cost of cash management to the banking industry, security, money laundering, among others. While some stakeholders said that the directive was in the right direction, others argued that the country has not developed enough for such policy. In this report, Group Business Editor, ROTIMI DUROJAIYE, samples the opinions of a cross-section of Nigerian and concludes that the CBN should be more creative in its drive towards cashless economy to avoid strangling the economy itself.
The banking regulatory authority, which disclosed the latest directive on April 28 in a circular entitled “Industry Policy on Retail Cash Collection and Lodgement,” signed by its Director of Currency Operations Department, Muhammad Nda, warned that individuals and corporate organisations that flout the limits would be charged penalty fees of N100 per thousand and N200 per thousand respectively.
CBN, which pointed out that the policy was adopted to reduce high usage of cash and moderate the cost of cash management as well as encourage the use of electronic payment channels, stated that it took the decision in collaboration with the bankers’ committee.
It threatened to suspend any bank, payments scheme, processor, switching company or service provider that contravenes the policy for a Read more…
Salt Lake City goes wallet-free with Isis
Trial run for national rollout
Operator consortium Isis has selected Salt Lake City as its flagship deployment to show the rest of the USA what NFC can do for them.
The plan will see Salt Lake City’s public transport system accepting pay-by-wave from a mobile phone by the middle of next year. Retailers have also been encouraged to adopt Near Field Communications technology at the point of sale, as Salt Lake City strives to become The Place You Can Leave Your Wallet At Home.
Isis was set up less than six months ago: a consortium of US network operators including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. The consortium is dedicated to ensuring that electronic payments based on NFC keep their secure element in the SIM – under the control of the network operator, not the handset manufacturer or bank-card supplier – by promoting the technology and business models associated with it.
In Salt Lake City, that involves working with the Utah Transit Authority to convert all the buses and trains to accept NFC payments, as well as flooding the area with NFC handsets and SIM chips.
“I would like to express our excitement that the Salt Lake City area has been chosen to lead the roll-out of Isis mobile payments,” said Mayor Ralph Becker’s canned statement, though looking a little closer it becomes obvious why Salt Lake was chosen to lead the US into contactless payments.
The Utah Transit Authority already uses proximity payment cards, deployed in 2009, so adding NFC functionality to public transport is a matter of software not hardware, and while the City might be the capital of Utah it has a population somewhat smaller than Northampton, so presents a nicely sized area for experimentation rather than a sprawling metropolis where deployment would be more challenging.
But the transition to electronic payments isn’t going to happen overnight, and it’s good to see Isis doing something practical, and with a reasonably aggressive timetable. It will be interesting to see how the locals take to paying by wave.
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