French Banks Plan To Increase EMV Card Security
Banks in France are starting to increase the security of their EMV cards to complicate fraudstersÆ efforts at counterfeiting chip-based cards as the cost of the more secure cards drops. Around 40 per cent of card transactions in France are currently EMV-based, according to Groupement des Cartes Bancaires, which estimates that FranceÆs EMV migration is roughly 70 per cent complete. Fraud reduction on foreign-issued banking cards used within France, and on French-issued cards used abroad is the primary motive for French banks in adopting the EMV chip card standard.In 2004, fraud on domestically-issued cards totaled just under EUR 70 million even when chips were always used in payments, CB reports. Losses to cross-border fraud, which mainly occurred on mag-stripe cards in 2004, also totaled EUR 70 million, but these two totals still represented just .03 per cent of total card payments for the system, or 3 basis points. French banks, the first in Europe to use chip-based cards against fraud, are now looking at ôdynamic data authenticationö (DDA) security, which works by generating a unique digital signature for each card transaction.
EMV cards that support DDA as an option within the EMV payment card standard are now being issued by French banks Credit Mutuel and La Poste, in place of the less-secure ôstatic data authenticationö (SDA) cards that France and the UK issued in their initial EMV migration. Over the next two years, French banks are expected to replace their entire chip card base with DDA cards. As SDA cards are vulnerable to fraudsters, who can potentially use counterfeit cards at a point-of-sale that does not use online authentication, the banks are keen to close all possible security holes as soon as possible. Related Links:
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