During a press conference held at its head office in Bab Idriss on Wednesday, March 30, 2016, Bank Audi, in partnership with MasterCard and Visa, launched e-commerce and mobile commerce security tools under the slogan “Online Payment Security… A Way Forward”.
Mrs. Randa Bdeir, Group Head of e-Payment Solutions and Card Services at Bank Audi, seized the occasion to underline that “since 2013, Bank Audi has sought to meet the objective of building a cashless society through various initiatives, the first of which was providing innovative solutions such as the Tap2Pay NFC contactless payment method. The second initiative was to introduce new tools that ensure security and promote the various types of e-commerce: online, through mobile phones, and on social media or online games. As Bank Audi is aware that it is not possible to push e-commerce forward without offering cardholders and merchants secure solutions, we have laid out a security roadmap that meets present and future needs. We then developed our programs and applications in line with the security standards defined by Visa and MasterCard, in such a way as to gear them towards one ultimate goal: ensuring further security for e-payment. We now offer two new services which fall under the security umbrella, namely 3D Secure and Tokenization”.
The 3D Secure service is designed to increase transactions’ security level when shopping online, while protecting both the cardholder and the merchant. With the increase in online risks, 3D Secure is an essential tool to boost consumers’ trust and limit conflicts and fraud. It helps verify the identity of both the cardholder and the merchant (parties involved in the transaction) and protect them from card theft and online usage. Cardholders will therefore use their 3D Secure password for any online transaction, just like they enter their PIN code on ATMs.
The second service, “Tokenization”, encodes the transaction by replacing the card’s 16-digit number with a “token” is used for transactions made through the internet, the mobile, or any wireless payment method. This technology protects cardholders by turning their card number into a token code every time they make a transaction through Tap2Pay (mobile, sticker, watch and bracelet). Tokenization is also used for merchants who link their sites to the Audi e-Payment gateway as it simplifies purchases through easy check out, and allows clients to make recurrent payments. Merchants no longer have to save card numbers on their sites; all they have to do is use a code so that clients don’t have to enter their card number every time they want to make a transaction online.
Mr. Basel Eltell, MasterCard’s Manager for the Middle East and Africa region, chose to shed the light on “the substantial development of anti-fraud means in the field of e-commerce, namely through the development of processes which have succeeded in making e-commerce safer. The implementation of a secure e-payment channel has become a necessity in order for e-commerce in the region to achieve sustainable development. MasterCard’s priority today is to make online purchasing operations easy and secure thanks to a close collaboration with banks that issue credit cards, as well as with merchants. At the same time, we continue to play an active role in the risk management and innovation with regard to safe payment solutions which meet the various needs of international markets.”
Mr. Ramzi Saboury, Country Manager of Visa, said: “As per recent global internet statistics, there are more than 90 million internet users in the Middle East and North Africa region, and mobile devices now represent the most important platform due to its wide usage. Visa is very involved in this transformation and these new innovations in electronic payment. Therefore we are keen to enhance these innovations with equal efforts to guarantee security and save users’ accounts sensitive information. These security solutions include Verified by Visa (VbV) which requires the cardholder to enter a password sent to his mobile device to achieve the transaction.”
Bank Audi constantly seeks to innovate and adopt new secure solutions to make payments easier and promote the trust between consumers and merchants in the context of e-payment methods.