Please Take This Poll

If you have a moment, our Chairman and CEO, Ken Mages, would be interested in hearing your opinion. After you vote you will be given the results

Would you use a personal swiping device if it 100% protected your ID/Card Data?

Click Here to take the Poll

Thank you in advance for taking the time to share your valued opinion and for visiting the HomeATM PIN Debit Payments Blog!

John B. Frank
HomeATM ePayment Solutions

Also, feel free to leave your comments on this post!

HomeATM Slider Now Compatible with Your Blackberry!

Yesterday, in a post I saracastically dubbed "DumbPhoneded" I talked about security vs. convenience and a new McAfee report showing mobile device manufacturers are seeing more malware attacks than ever before.   Here's some excerpts from DarkReading's Smartphone Threats Intensify

• Security threats were bound to catch up with the proliferation of smartphones across the enterprise...
  
  
• Experts have long warned that smartphones...could become the new weakest link in the enterprise...
  
  
• But they are [typically] completely bypassing the IT infrastructure." They are also bypassing security, he says, putting sensitive data at risk...
  
  
• McAfee's report, which is based on a survey of 30-plus mobile device manufacturers from around the world, found these vendors are getting hit with more malware attacks than ever before. As a result, they are spending more money on recovering from them.
  
  
• Around 48 percent said their devices accounted for data loss problems, up from around 27 percent in 2007. (Editor's Note: You mean like my card information, and other personal data?)

Of course, as this blog has been consistently stating, if you want security in your transactions, it CANNOT be done in a browser environment and that especially includes phones.  Think of the highly publicized Caylee Anthony case.  Her mother's every single phone call, every single text...(even pinged her locations) to PINpoint her whereabouts on certain days and certain times.  If they can do it, don't think for a moment the hackers can't.

In fact, they are "wizards" at it.

So should you ever be in the market for a "guaranteed" secure/end-to-end encrypted financial transaction (send or receive: direct payment, person 2 person, bill pay, you name it) using existing bank rails, there's no place like HomeATM.

P.S.  Our Smart Phone Personal Swiping Device is network agnostic. CDMA or GSM and will secure transactions via phone to PC, phone to merchant, phone to phone, etc. 

For more information, feel free to contact me and I'll make sure you get to through to the necessary channels.

The Rising Threat of Alternative Payment Channels - Report

There's a new report on Alternative Payments Channels being released tomorrow from VRL.

The graph on the left is from a previous released Celent Report and shows that PIN Debit has the highest Customer Value Proposition and only slightly trails "Invoicing" in Merchant Value Proposition.  Of course, when you add our Email-based P2P application, HomeATM looks like it's sitting pretty. 

Here's an overview from the latest report.

Alternative Payment Channels
By: Ray Cain

Published: 20 February 2009

Cost: £1297

There is a growing awareness of the importance of payments in the retail banking business. The transaction account is at the core of the customer relationship and payment services play a critical role in customer acquisition and retention. Payments are also an important source and driver of revenue. At the same time banks´ traditional role in retail payments is coming under growing threat from a plethora of alternative payment providers. This is being driven by a need for payment mechanisms that are faster, more convenient, and more secure, and that meet the needs of new transaction channels and emerging market segments, along with a confluence of regulatory factors and market conditions.

In many respects banks are in a strong position to compete. They already have an installed base of customers who rely on them for payment services. They are trusted as repositories of funds and financial intermediaries. And network externalities pose a formidable barrier to new entrants. At the same time alternative players establishing themselves in market niches consistent with the classic model of disruptive innovation are looking to expand from there into the mainstream payments space.

Report Content

• Alternative payments – background to the threat
• Drivers of alternative payments
• Alternative payments - serving niche markets
• Micropayments
• The un(der)banked
• Alternative POS networks
• Enhancing point-of-sale payments
• Enhancing online payments
• Enhancing payments with promotions
• Integrating payments with the shopping process

Who should read this?

• CEOs, heads of retail banking, strategic planners, e-channels, IT and marketing managers of financial institutions
• CEOs, strategic planners, marketing managers of alternative payments providers
• Consultants, analysts and industry observers
• What are they looking for?
• To understand alternative payments and the potential threat they pose to banks’ position in retail payments, initiatives underway and solutions available to allow banks to respond to this threat.
• To understand the current state of the industry and what alternative payments mean to banks.
• To deepen their understanding of the potential impact of alternative payments on the financial services industry and the industry’s response.

About the author:

Ray Cain is a researcher specialising in banking and finance. He holds a post-graduate Diploma in banking and a Master of Management in banking from Massey University in New Zealand. He is also studying for a PhD in economics at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. During his working career, he has held management and consulting roles in economic development projects in Indonesia and Serbia.

Wyndham Hotel Hack Followup

Here's a follow-up to the Wyndham Breach

It seems that the criminals not only were able to get guest names, credit card numbers and expiration dates,  but they also were able to steal the data from the card's magnetic stripe, Wyndham said.  That magnetic stripe information contains Track 1 and Track 2 data including the (CVV) code, "which is critical if the thieves want to make fake credit cards, according to Avivah Litan, an analyst with Gartner Research."

"That's the hot information," she said. "You can sell that information for much more on the black market." CVV codes were also taken in the high-profile Heartland Payment Systems and The TJX Companies credit card thefts.

When fraud is perpetrated using fake cards that include the CVV codes, the banks are responsible for the charges;

When they are able to obtain only the card numbers and expiration dates -- for example,online transactions NOT DONE by HomeATM -- then the retailer is responsible for the charges.

"The banking industry is all up in arms whenever bank stripe data is stolen," Litan said.  

As posted in "DumbPhoneded" the retailers should be up in arms everytime a transaction is conducted without the  Track 2 data being swiped.  Not only are they paying up to 100 basis points more, but in the face of increased fraud, they could lose their product and lose the money they thought they got for it.  Call that a double whammy, no cheese.

Related articles

• Major Data Breach Puts Millions At Risk (cbsnews.com)
• Heartland data breach could be bigger than TJX's (infoworld.com)