Visa CodeSure Cards to Curb Online Fraud

We Indians are known for being paranoid about using our credit cards for online transactions even today. We would rather buy our movie tickets in person and buy gadgets from real shops rather than an online store. The fear that someone will take advantage of our credit card details always haunts us and deters us from becoming a complete online buyer.

However, Visa claims that the anxiety can now be cut down a few notches. Visa has announced the commercial launch of their latest line of secure credit cards. Named CodeSure, these cards have an alpha-numeric display, a 12-button keypad and battery embedded in the card.
The cardholder is required to enter the PIN for each online transaction, and the Visa CodeSure card will prevent any unauthorized use. Visa CodeSure works on any Visa debit, credit, prepaid or commercial card. 

The process of validating the transaction is done in three steps:

1. When shopping online or logging in to an online banking service, the cardholder activates the authentication process by pressing the "Verified by Visa" option button on the card's keypad
2. When prompted the consumer inputs their PIN into the keypad embedded in the card
3. A unique one-time-passcode appears on the card's display, which is then used by the cardholder to authenticate a normal Verified by Visa transaction

More details here

Baishampayan Ghose, co-founder & CTO of Infinitely Beta, a personal finance start-up company, said, "This is nothing new, banks like HSBC have given keychains to all its customers that generate a unique password every time somebody logs into their netbanking websites. This brought to credit cards is an interesting idea. It might help people feel more secure, but there are certain usability issues with these devices that have to be solved first." 

Ghose says he mostly buys travel tickets, makes hotel reservations and pays bills online. Talking about this CodeSure cards specifically for India, he said, "I think the reason why Indian people don't use CCs online has more to do with culture than anything else. People find it very hard to trust an unknown website and have certain reservations about giving them money and then waiting for the goods to arrive -- pathetic customer service from Indian e-commerce companies makes it even worse."

What do you think of this new development? Would you feel any safer to use your credit card for online transactions? Leave us a comment below.