Mobile Card Payments
The proliferation of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets not only gives consumers more choice, it also has the potential to dramatically expand the payments ecosystem, bringing new players such as mobile operators and handset manufacturers into the mix. Multiple payment advocates are competing for attention, with each party advancing a different vision for where the consumer’s electronic wallet—the trusted source of credentials—should reside: on a card, on a phone, or in the Cloud. These various approaches create new challenges and in some cases have the potential to establish new business models. The traditional role of banks in issuing physical cards that are mailed to users could be replaced by new classes of intermediaries such as Trusted Service Managers (TSMs) that provide over-the-air provisioning capabilities to mobile devices.
While new mobility for the customer continues to inspire innovation, these changes also create new data protection challenges. Whether organizations are issuing payment credentials and applications, accepting payments, or processing payments on the back end, they must keep stored customer and account information secure. Mobile transactions must be protected, whether they occur via Near Field Communication (NFC) in a store, on a tablet computer, or using a mobile phone over a wireless network. And every organization involved must continue to comply with an evolving set of industry mandates.
