Thanks to the level of sophistication that online theft is presenting to credit and debit card holders, card issuing companies will be required to step up their game in order to prevent or at the very least quell these cyber thefts. While payment gateways offer sufficient protection to credit and debit card holders while they are in the process of making an online transaction, security standards are required to be revised over and over again in order to prevent the bypassing of hackers stealing sensitive encrypted information.
To answer the cries of online theft victims, MasterCard has announced the world’s first contactless payment card. The payment card possesses a fingerprint scanner that will end up authenticating payments for users. The company partnership withZwipe resulted in the creation of the contactless payment card. Zwipe is a company who is proficient in biometric technology, and using that proficiency, it has assimilated such a security contingency on the payment card that it will only work if the user’s thumb is positioned on the built-in sensor.
Not only can the card be made to make payments using biometric security, but card holders will also be able conduct transactions after they wave the card near an NFC reader for contactless payments. The fingerprint data is stored on to the card’s secure element and is never transmitted to MasterCard, increasing the level of security while making online transactions. Furthermore, since biometric authentication negates the user from entering their personal PIN number, the former form of security is far more robust than the PIN system.
The contactless card will become available in the UK during mid-2015. By then majority of the planet’s population may have already switched to conducting online transactions using their fingerprints.
