Visa and MasterCard team up to focus on better payment security

NEW YORK, March 7 (UPI) -- MasterCard and Visa announced Friday that they formed a cross-industry group to work on improving payment security systems, including new chip technology.

The group will include all the players using such payment systems, such as banks, credit unions, retailers, trade groups and point-of-sale system manufacturers. The group will focus on transitioning to chip-based Europay, MasterCard, Visa systems, also called EMV, in the U.S.

The system, which is already in use in Europe, will create a unique code for each transaction, making it difficult for counterfeiters to use these cards to commit fraud. For online and mobile transactions, traditional account numbers will be replaced with a unique digital payment code that will provide additional security.

"One of the critical roles we play is to protect consumers and businesses against criminals and fraudsters," said Chris McWilton, president of North American Markets, at MasterCard.

This move could be a result of the security breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and J.M. Smucker, after which the payment industry seems to have decided it's time to update and improve their security systems.

[ZDNet] [FOX Business]