Finally, VISA thinks about smart chip (ZT)

America practically invented credit cards, yet we're the only place on Earth that does not use the secure world standard of smart chip technology in our cards. But that may be all about to change.

A lack of proper card security means we have had ever-rising credit card fraud because of it. To this point, the bank cartel has been opposed to reasonable security, instead favoring the magnetic strip technology of the 1960s over modern smart chips.

To my shock though, Visa has now said they want to go to the world standard for cards. Visa has new terminal device they hope merchants will adopt that allows them to accept smart chip cards. At this point, no one has been able to crack the code effectively to allow sustained duplications of cards when you're talking about smart chip cards. That's a good thing. Of course, I say "at this point" because we all know crooks get smarter as technology changes.

The other thing is that for Americans who travel abroad, more and more of you can't use credit cards because the readers overseas only accept the new world standard and not our obsolete '60s technology.

The cost of conversion to a smart chip system is a very small sum relative to the amount charged on credit cards each year. The hold up until this point has been the banks. But it's interesting to note that MasterCard, which usually acts a cartel and sticks with Visa, is not on board with the idea of going to the world standard. So we'll see what happens, but this could potentially be a good development for Visa card carriers.

On the bad side, The Wall Street Journal  reports that Visa hopes to make the rules change so merchants  end up with the lion's share of liability when a customer passes a bad card. That speaks to the need for more competition in the credit card and payment processing business.

It also again gives another incentive to merchants to start offering cash discounts. You have the right to do it, and your price sensitive customers will love it.

所有跟帖： 

• 我的MC和amex好像幾年前就有了，隻不過多數商家還是在劃卡 -pigletto- ♀ (0 bytes) () 08/19/2011 postreply 10:32:00

• 你咋那麽牛？是專門要的還是發給你就那樣？ -色大膽小- ♂ (0 bytes) () 08/19/2011 postreply 10:36:50

• 發什麽用什麽，還敢提要求 -pigletto- ♀ (0 bytes) () 08/19/2011 postreply 10:41:51