Electronic Transactions Association Releases Mobile Payments Industry Whitepaper

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Electronic Transactions Association's (ETA) Processor Council today announced publication of an industry whitepaper to advance the deployment of mobile wallets through industry best practices that can make mobile payment transactions a robustly secure and reliable means of making payments.

"The Processor Council of the Electronic Transactions Association worked hard on this industry collaboration to advance mobile payments deployment, and ETA is proud to provide its member companies the valuable research and information included in this paper," said Jason Oxman, CEO of ETA. "Our industry is focused on deploying the safest, most reliable mobile payment technologies.  Companies will each use their own preferred technology, and this research will help the industry understand the options available to help drive consumer and merchant adoption."

ETA, the nation's largest payments technology trade association, represents more than 500 of the world's most prominent financial industry and technology companies. ETA's Processor Council is an active ETA committee of the nation's largest payments processors that collaborate on industry-wide issues.  The paper published today provides background and discussion points regarding card payment transactions, mobile payment transactions and a comparison of the two.

Key findings and takeaways from the whitepaper, titled "Better Security Through Mobile – 'The One-Two Punch' – Industry Best Practices" include:

• Research on industry best practices related to authentication of mobile transactions. Examples include a fingerprint scan or confirming the consumer's identity visually (the wallet software can communicate with the merchant via geolocation or Bluetooth and provide a picture of the actual cardholder for visual authentication).
• A summary of mobile security industry best practices. The paper reveals industry practice that a mobile transaction require the user to provide at least three of the options of authentication – for example at least two 'What-You-Have' layers (e.g. phone or email verification) and at least one 'What –You-Know' layer (e.g. password for the mobile wallet or phone).
• A comparison of various mobile use cases related to authentication, transmission (communication of cardholder information to the merchant point of sale) and credential storage (location of cardholder payment information). Examples include Near Field Communications, a mobile wallet model that keeps the payment credentials encrypted – thus making skimming and data theft more difficult and Cloud Flow at point-of-sale with physical interaction, which requires that the consumer present information to the merchant from a cloud-based wallet, which provide encrypted account information to the merchant via barcode.
• Mobile transactions can deploy more sophisticated security than plastic card transactions, because:
  • Mobile wallets provide security features that can mitigate fraud risks using technology not available in plastic cards.
  • Mobile providers combine technologies that can lead to a powerful security solution.
  • Mobile wallets utilize the cloud and technology uniquely inherent to smartphones to communicate with merchants in more advanced and sophisticated ways than traditional plastic card or e-commerce transactions.

The ETA whitepaper concludes that in order to capitalize on the sophisticated technological capabilities of mobile devices and ensure security for consumers and other parties, requiring multiple authentication measures is a current industry best practice.

"Better Security Through Mobile – 'The One-Two Punch' – Industry Best Practices" whitepaper is available to members only. https://www.etamembers.org/

For media inquiries, contact Cortney Piper at (865) 329-0553 or [email protected].

About ETA
The Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) is the global trade association representing more than 500 payments and technology companies. ETA members make commerce possible by processing more than $4.5 trillion in purchases in the U.S. and deploying payments innovations to merchants and consumers. For more information visit, www.electran.org

Contact:
Cortney Piper, (865) 329-0553
[email protected]

SOURCE ETA