When it comes to fraud prevention, we all have our roles to play – and good news: Canadians are becoming more savvy about their role in protecting themselves from fraud. In a recent survey conducted by Visa Canada, cardholders reported active participation in keeping their transactions safe: 83 per cent of respondents regularly review their credit and debit statements, and 72 per cent of people have locked their smartphones with a password. A high percentage of respondents did express concern about the potential for credit card fraud with online shopping, despite being aware of fraud tools like card verification value 2 (CVV2 - the three-digit code on the back of your card), and the role it plays in protecting online transactions.
Visa has always been focused on ensuring the security, speed and convenience of electronic payments. Our layered approach to security offers multiple ways to combat and prevent fraud within the milliseconds it takes for a payment to be processed. Some of these layers include the EMV chip, CVV2, Address Verification service and the recently announced advancements to 3DSecure.
Now, as part of a broader long-term strategy to address fraud in Canada, Visa has published its Canada Payment Security Roadmap, which outlines a phased approach to keep payments secure and prevent fraud. The first rule being implemented a is designed to help combat fraud in the growing card-not-present space. Card-not-present fraud happens in purchasing environments where the card is not physically present, like e-commerce or telephone purchases. According to the latest Visa Fraud Reporting data, card-not-present fraud accounted for 78% of all fraud perpetrated on Canadian accounts and 74% of fraud losses at Canadian merchants are in the card-not-present channel.
Beginning this October, Visa will require new ecommerce and telephone merchants to capture CVV2 when making a Visa purchase. This is important because it means the likelihood that the person making the purchase is actually holding the card in their hand and is its rightful owner - reducing the potential for fraudsters to use stolen card numbers and expiry dates to make online or telephone purchases. This change will be expanded to all e-commerce and telephone order merchants in 2018.
Visa will roll-out all the elements of the Canada Payment Security Roadmap over the next three years.