Transacting towards a safer tomorrow

Change is the only thing that stays constant and with the progressing times, change is inevitable.

Remember, eons ago, when we used to pay in livestock for a sack of flour. That livestock turned into shells which turned into precious stones and metals eventually leading to paper currency. At that time, it was a revolutionary change to the outdated methods for it let people assign a monetary value (on a set scale) to the commodities they traded, leaving no space for confusion or biases.

But to lubricate the wheels of change in order to bring about ease in its motion, you need innovation every now and then.

Soon, plastic money came into picture which only required you to swipe your debit/credit card for any transaction. Debit/Credit cards were not only a better option while traveling but they were much more convenient for making large transactions as it saved the hassle of carrying a large amount of cash with you. While this revolution had its benefits, continuous changes were made to ensure it is also the safest method of transacting.

Initially, the cardholders were only supposed to sign after they swiped their card to authenticate the transactions. It was soon realized that this wasn’t a safe enough measure. The signing was later replaced with punching a pin every time you made a transaction followed by an automated message on the registered number. This method is still very much prevalent.

But recently, owing to safety concerns, banks have come up with issuing virtual credit cards for one time online transactions and this virtual card is made within seconds. This safeguards the customers of the bank from online credit card fraud.

Visa has introduced Contactless Visa cards that lets you transact by simply waving your card over the authorized visa machines.

Through this innovation, Visa has tried to safeguard its cardholders from becoming a victim to tampered card swiping machines (PoS machines). But for this technology to work, the merchants have to be compliant. As of this moment, only a few outlets of big retailers, in India, posses the authorized machines needed to support the Contactless Visa cards.

Banks also offer on and off features for their Debit/Credit cards to ensure safety in case of theft of the cards. All you have to do is go on the bank’s app and switch the button. It’s that simple!

Today’s revolution is redundant tomorrow if the needed measures aren’t taken to keep it relevant and updated.

The same goes with the way we transact. Safety is an important concern and with new threats every day, we need to keep updating the security measures. More than that we need to provide suitable infrastructural support for these changes.