Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Visa to roll out chip and PIN technology for New Zealand

Signatures will be phased out as part of a seven-point strategy to crackdown on card fraud
 
Visa has announced it will move to chip and PIN technology for all New Zealand Visa cards over the next four years, with signatures no longer accepted at the checkout from 2012, as part of a wide-ranging agenda to cut card fraud.

Visa’s Country Manager for New Zealand, Sean Preston, said Visa was working with financial institutions and retailers to upgrade more than 2.6 million Visa cards in New Zealand[1] and thousands of merchant point of sale terminals and ATMs to chip and PIN technology.

“From April 2010, all new Visa credit cards issued in New Zealand will feature secure embedded smart chips to give New Zealanders a higher level of confidence in the security of their transactions,” Mr Preston said. “This will be followed by the upgrade of Visa debit and reloadable prepaid cards from April 2012,” he added.

“Chip technology will also offer banks and merchants the ability to provide their customers with benefits such as faster transactions, innovations such as contactless payments and the opportunity to store information such as reward programs on their cards.”

Mr Preston said the move to chip and PIN was part of a comprehensive seven-point security agenda that also includes initiatives to enhance the security of online transactions.  Cardholders will be enabled to use a Verified by Visa password when shopping over the internet.  Online retailers will be required to capture the three-digit cardholder verification number when processing transactions, while small and medium sized businesses will be required to enhance their levels of data security.

“These initiatives are part of a comprehensive security upgrade aimed at providing cardholders with a higher level of confidence and significantly reducing all types of card fraud including counterfeit, skimming and online fraud,” Mr Preston said.

“While card fraud in remains low by world standards, overseas criminals are becoming increasingly active in seeking out new arenas. The time is right to take advantage of the new technologies available to work across the industry, with banks and merchants, to strengthen security across the board. However, non-New Zealand issued magnetic stripe cards will continue to be accepted with signatures as will overseas chip cards without PINs,” Mr Preston said.

Visa has been consulting with financial institutions and merchants to agree on the following actions and timelines:

·         Moving to 100 percent chip card issuance.  By 1 April 2010, banks and other financial institutions must issue all new Visa credit cards on chip; by 1 April 2012 all new Visa debit and reloadable prepaid cards must be on chip; and by 1 April 2014, 100 percent of all Visa cards must be on chip. 

·         Ensuring all merchant acceptance terminals must be chip capable and activated by 1 July 2011.

·         Ensuring all new Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) commissioned must be chip capable by 1 April 2011. 

·         Introducing a broad rollout of PIN (Personal Identification Number) verification for all domestic transactions, with signatures no longer accepted from 1 April 2012.

·         Issuers must enrol all Visa cards for Verified by Visa, a free service for cardholders that provides a password for secure online shopping, by 1 April 2012.

·         All merchants who take online, telephone and mail order transactions must check the three-digit card verification code (known as CVV2) from 1 April 2012.

·         Small and medium sized (Level 4) merchants will be required to implement higher levels of data security.  Acquiring banks will be required to provide Visa with a program for their merchants to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) by 30 April 2010 that includes a strategy for risk profiling, merchant education and compliance reporting twice per year.

Currently about four percent of Visa cards issued in New Zealand are chip-enabled[2].  Chip cards used with PINs have proven to be effective in reducing counterfeit card fraud overseas. The UK introduced compulsory chip and PIN in 2006, resulting in fraud losses at UK retailers falling by 35 percent between 2005 and 2008[3].  In Malaysia, chip technology was mandated in 2005 and resulted in domestic counterfeit fraud on Malaysian-issued Visa cards being virtually eliminated within 12 months[4].

Mr Preston said that recent fraud trends have highlighted Card Not Present (CNP) fraud as an area of concern.  “Initiatives such as CVV2 and Verified by Visa will focus on online security and empower cardholders to play a more active role in protecting their information.”

In addition to its multiple layers of security, Visa offers purchase protection across all of its credit, debit and prepaid cards issued in New Zealand under its Zero Liability policy. Under this policy, Visa cardholders are not held liable for unauthorised transactions whether they are conducted online, in person or over the phone[5].


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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Assessing Ad Impact: Magazines a Most Cost Effective Medium

Dynamic Logic, a company specialising in advertising accountability research, recently updated their database of client-commissioned CrossMedia Research accountability studies. The new aggregation, which contains 39 studies, continues their work on how television, magazine and online advertising combine to impact the attitudes and intended behavior of consumers as they go through five identified stages of the buying process, i.e., the purchase funnel.

In an article posted by the Magazine Publishers of America showed for the first time, Dynamic Logic went beyond analysing advertising effects for these three media and looked at the cost of generating results for each medium individually as well as in combination with others, expressed as return on investment (ROI). Looking at consumers reached by each medium they found:

• Overall, magazine advertising drove consumer attitudes and intended behavior more effectively and efficiently than viewing television advertising alone or, TV in combination with online advertising.

• Across the 39 studies, adding magazines to TV and online had the greatest impact on consumer attitudes and intended behavior in three out of five stages: aided brand awareness at the top of the purchase funnel, and brand favorability and purchase consideration/intent at the key conversion and action stages at the bottom of the funnel. For ad awareness, magazines and TV virtually tied in their contribution.

- For the consumer packaged goods category (17 studies), magazines when added to TV and online were also the largest contributor in three out of five stages: ad awareness, brand favorability and purchase consideration/intent.

- For the non-packaged goods category (22 studies), as with overall results, magazines when added to TV and online were the largest contributor for aided brand awareness, brand favorability, and purchase consideration/intent.

• Magazines were the most cost effective medium throughout the purchase funnel, looking at two related measures of ROI-cost per person and people impacted per dollar spent-from ten CrossMedia Research studies for which ROI was available:

- Based on cost per person, magazines were the most efficient medium in three out of five stages of the purchase funnel. The combination of magazines and online was most efficient for the remaining two stages

- Based on people impacted per dollar spent, magazines were the most efficient medium in four out of five stages of the purchase funnel. TV + magazines + online was most efficient for the one remaining stage.


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A New Breed of Publisher Emerges

Independent Magazine Publisher's editor, Jon Barrett, stated:

"Publishing Expo offered the opportunity to delve deep into the heart of the magazine publishing community and explore the current and future plans of decision makers.

"Firstly, many publishers have surfaced from the downturn in good shape thanks to their focus on efficient, well managed publishing processes. These companies are capitalising on this strength to take market share from weakened competitors or replicate their successful publishing model in new sectors.

"Secondly, we spoke to a new group of young, entrepreneurial publishing professionals who, in a more buoyant market, would have likely been lured into a different industry. The downturn has driven them to explore different opportunities and they are oozing with the energy, enthusiasm and willingness to direct their education and passion to a magazine launch.


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