PCI Council to Release New Standard for Mobile Payments
Security in mobile payments has been priority one for users—and often close to that for providers—ever since mobile payments actually existed. One of the leading forces on that front is the Payment Card Industry (PCI), who created a line of security standards used to this day. New word from MYPINPAD says that not only is a new standard in the making, but it’s poised to take advantage of it as well.
Known as PIN on Mobile, or PIN on Glass, a “Software-Based PIN Entry” standard, this new solution is designed to bring an extra punch of security to mobile payments transactions, particularly those being staged via common commercially-available mobile devices.
It’s geared toward taking the entries of a PIN, and not only isolating these from common inputs, but also adding particular protection to them as well. Since more and more stores and businesses are finding a use for payment authentication done through smartphones and tablets, it was clear that a better protection system was required.
One of the first new solutions to put this standard to work will come from MYPINPAD, whose own PIN on Mobile systems will be a major portion of one of the first certified solutions in that vein. MYPINPAD even brought in point-of-sale technology veteran David Poole to help get the system up and running.
Poole offered comment on the new solution, saying “Removing the need for a separate hardware PIN pad allows vendors to produce smaller, lower-cost devices. By reducing the solution cost, a significant barrier to entry for card acceptance by merchants is removed.”
Better security in the mobile payments arena is going to be vital to take this market out of the maturing stage and get it into mainstream. Security has long been a concern of mobile payments users, and one of the biggest things keeping potential new users out of that pool altogether. Mobile payments has delivered a lot of value in convenience and in ease of use, but unless there’s a clear security front protecting users’ accounts from fraud—one that’s updated routinely to reflect changing attack methods—it’s not going to carry enough weight to get users to trust it.
Still, with this latest push from PCI and MYPINPAD, we may well see a greater rush to actually using mobile payments tools.