The future has arrived as Visa introduced a new specification to use biometrics with chip card transactions. The specification can enable palm, voice, iris, or facial biometrics. This first-of-its-kind technology framework is designed to work with the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) chip industry standard to help ensure open, globally interoperable solutions.
The MasterCard Multi-currency Cash Passport mobile app has been launched in South Africa. The free app allows users to easily transfer money between purses, review transactions, and track their spending on their phone.
American Express agrees to distribute MasterCard’s multi-currency Cash Passport card in South Africa. AmEx says the success of the first multi-currency Cash Passport, a co-branded card that AmEx launched with Absa in 2013, has paved the way for AmEx to make the Cash Passport product available through more outlets across South Africa this year. The MasterCard Cash Passport card can be preloaded with up to four currencies (U.S. Dollars, Pound Sterling, Australian Dollars and Euros) at once.
Woolworths Financial Services entrusted the management of its credit processing and account management systems to the EMP Group for the next five years. WFS is the financial services joint venture between Barclays Africa Group (formerly known as Absa), and the continent’s foremost food and clothing retailer, Woolworths. WFS provides a broad range of financial services products to more than 1.8 million customers in South Africa and Namibia including store cards, Visa credit cards, personal loans, and insurance. Emerging Markets Payments payments solutions provider and processor provides innovative payments solutions to more than 140 banks and 30 000 merchants in 45 countries and operates processing platforms in South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Jordan.
bsa Bank launched a Multi-Currency Cash Passport – South Africa’s first reloadable prepaid travel Multi-Currency Card. The card allows cardholders to load multiple currencies on the same card with global reach of MasterCard, while it is also accepted at 35.9 million locations worldwide. Cardholders can currently load up to four currencies on the easy-to-use card: US dollar, British Pounds, Euro and the Australian Dollars. More currencies will be added to the Multi-Currency Cash Card at a later stage.
Absa of Barclays is focusing on its payments strategy to make its customers lives easier with plans to launch a mobile payment acceptance service for businesses that works using a mobile phone. Absa entered into an agreement with a local payment innovations company thumbzup, to enable businesses and entrepreneurs on-the-go to accept debit or credit card payments using their smartphones or tablets through a world first, plug-in device called ‘The Absa Payment Pebble.’ Absa is set to provide the Absa Payment Pebble as a value added service to all small business owners and merchants on-the-go with availability scheduled for early 2013. The Absa Payment Pebble is a small card-reader device that plugs into a 3.5mm audio input on any mobile smartphone or tablet and includes a mobile app.
Gemalto digital security joined the partnership of Cyber Resilience, a global initiative developed by the World Economic Forum in support of fostering a trusted share digital space and supported by leading global companies. Gemalto will work alongside the initiative partners to identify and address emerging global needs and systemic risks that arise from the increasing digital connectivity of people, processes and objects. The company brings its global experience in digital security applied in particular to authenticated mobile security, trusted cloud access, identity and privacy protection, eHealthcare and eGovernment security and efficiency. Gemalto will also bring in the expertise acquired through its numerous contributions to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) security standards.
Absa Group Limited, the largest retail bank in South Africa, has contracted Bytes Managed Solutions, which exclusively distributes and supports financial service solutions from NCR Corporation, to overhaul its entire ATM network across South Africa over a three-year period, and provide ongoing IT services and support for the next five years. Absa customers will now…
Some of the initiatives that demonstrate teh Absa commitment to sustainable innovative solutions include contactless payments; in-store Banking; remote Account Opening App; Absa “CashSend;” and “Pay in Your Currency. The mobile phones will become the key device for making payments, with 44% of urban mobile-phone users now access banking services via phones. Customers aged between 26 and 34 years are the highest users at 41%, while 11% of people older than 45 utilise it.
Visa appointed Gavin Krugel to its global mobile team to support the activation of mobile money programs for Fundamo customers, where he was previous and which was recently-acquired by Visa. The Fundamo mobile money platform extends Visa products to unbanked consumers in developing economies. The platform specializes in the implementation of mobile money services across developing markets in Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa. Gavin was also senior director at the GSMA, the global association that represents the worldwide mobile industry, where he led the GSMA’s mobile money efforts in international remittances and in making financial services available to the unbanked through mobile, such as the Mobile Money for the Unbanked and Mobile Money Transfer initiatives.
Absa Bank is adopting FICO “Falcon Fraud Manager 6”
to control fraud in its debit and credit card portfolios. Serving over
10 million retail banking clients, Absa acquiring the “Falcon Fraud
Manager 6” allows FICO to protect more than half of the credit and debit
cards issued in South Africa. The FICO solution will help Absa Bank
improve fraud prevention, detection, investigation, recovery and
remediation and implement real-time fraud capabilities to score debit
and credit card transactions as they occur. These let the bank stop the
highest-risk transactions if needed, without slowing down transaction
speeds for legitimate transactions. FICO “Falcon Fraud Manager 6”
comprehensive solution for detecting payment card fraud reduces losses
by up to 50% while 17 of the top 20 credit card issuers rely on the FICO
“Falcon” system to protect over 2.1 billion active card accounts.
South African-based Absa Bank is adopting FICO “Falcon Fraud Manager 6” to control fraud in its debit and credit card portfolios. Serving over 10 million retail banking clients, Absa acquiring the “Falcon Fraud Manager 6” allows FICO to protect more than half of the credit and debit cards issued in South Africa. The FICO solution will help Absa Bank improve fraud prevention, detection, investigation, recovery and remediation and implement real-time fraud capabilities to score debit and credit card transactions as they occur. These let the bank stop the highest-risk transactions if needed, without slowing down transaction speeds for legitimate transactions. FICO “Falcon Fraud Manager 6” comprehensive solution for detecting payment card fraud reduces losses by up to 50% while 17 of the top 20 credit card issuers rely on the FICO “Falcon” system to protect over 2.1 billion active card accounts.