Jurassic Park and The Congressional Payments Technology Caucus

The Congressional Payments Technology Caucus

Recently I was asked, after posting a news story about the new Congressional Payments Technology Caucus, what I thought the purpose was. Did I think anything would come out of it? Well, officially, its purpose is to look at “the new and innovative technologies in the payments industry”, according to PaymentEye. Hard to say what will really come out of this. It only lists 4 members at this time.

“Jurassic Park” Thinking

I can see the cyber security piece being key in the US government’s interest. I do believe that omnichannel payments, big data, and cloud computing are leading us down a road where we are in a race to break down barriers between channels and information. At the same time, an eye on security must remain. It’s like “Jurassic Park” thinking. Technology/Big Data/Payments companies “…were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” A domino effect could lead to some really big hacks to some serious places. So far, no real harm has been done. Just theft, people trying to move dollars from here to there, release a movie early, or crack some emails. So far, no one has been physically hurt. Although payments are not directly related to hacks into say “public utilities” or “airlines”, they do all play in the big data sharing sandbox so to speak: that information highway that never stops moving, collecting, transferring, transmitting.

Rise in online fraud expected, continued massive data breaches

It has been foretold, and has already been proved, that once EMV card chips are in place in US, fraud will begin to increase dramatically in the online/CNP/ecommerce world. The Aite Group reported that CNP fraud rose 79% in the UK in the first three years after their conversion to EMV chips and we can expect the same, according to CreditCards.com. Counterfeit cards will drop significantly. Card theft will still be there but not as much (still problematic until we get the PIN piece in place with EMV, most cards won’t have it at launch, though). It is the online world where the criminal activity will now focus. Perhaps this Caucus is looking towards that uptick in online fraud. While the National Security idea is nice, consumers are just plain tired of all the data breaches and want change. They want to feel safe using their card and SPENDING THEIR MONEY. That is what drives it all, isn’t it? Even though, we know that security thru EMV is just a ruse without the PIN piece, it a step in the right direction. What do you think? What have you been seeing in Europe in actual practice of EMV and the payments landscape and government involvement?