Tackling online frauds in earnest

Visa card charge slips will reveal only 4 random digits.

To stem the escalating number of credit- and debit-card related frauds, all Visa card (around 45 million) charge slips in India will reveal only four random digits from April. Credit and debit cards have a 16-digit identification number (also called PAN or Permanent Account Number) and an additional 3-digit CVV (card verification value) number.

Scamsters use these numbers (mostly from charge slips that consumers carelessly throw on the roads or in dustbins without shredding them) in conjunction to commit online frauds -- the Rs 17 crore Kingfisher online ticket fraud being only a case in point.

Santanu Mukherjee, Country Manager, South Asia, Visa International, said: "Visa has instructed its partner banks throughout India that all POS (Point of Sale) terminals must support this change."

Some banks in India have completed the process while others are in the process of making the necessary changes to stick to the deadline. While this step will not prevent online frauds in totality since users can still jot down and misuse the number while swiping the card, it is a major step being taken to tackle cyber frauds.

It's also reliably learnt that the Commissioner of Mumbai Police, A N Roy, recently brought some of the key industry players like airlines, portals and banks under one roof to share the learnings they have found while dealing with such cases. The meet had many of leading private sector banks such as ICICI, HDFC, HSBC, almost all the major airlines operating from Mumbai and a few travel agents.

Along with the suggestions to introduce the card-masking initiative, the Mumbai Police has also asked the airlines to make pre-boarding verification-based on certain risk factors compulsory.

When contacted, Sadanand Date, Additional Commissioner of Police, Economic Offence Wing (EOW) said, "We think the Photo ID has a great benefit in curbing credit-card related crimes. This will ease detection of people using pseudo names while travelling."

He added: "We have asked the airlines to form a working group to fight such crimes and wherever they need our co-operation we will assist."

Today anyone can access card details-- at restaurants, petrol pump, grocery stores etc-- can use the card. However, there is no effort being made to check the authenticity of the transactions.

Deep Kalra, founder and CEO, Makemytrip also feels that address check and PIN numbers validation are some simple measures that can curb online fraud to a large extent.

Makemytrip also suggested there should be some authentication from the banks side. Any online transactions from a card should trigger an automated SMS to the cardholder -- currently, this is being done only by HDFC -- to which the customer should reply in Yes/No, to authenticate the transaction.

J Vinayan, Additional GM IRCTC, South Zone, believes HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) or HTTPs (an additional layer of encryption) can solve some basic rudimentary kind of frauds online but are of little help when the card details are available to the person.

Initiatives and Recommendations

Airlines may form a working group to fight card fraud

Pre-boarding verification compulsory

Visa to reveal only 4 digits on the charge slip

Address check and PIN number validation must

Automated SMS to the cardholder on any online transaction