According to Visa UK, the leading payments system, E-commerce is on the rise. This Christmas, UK Visa cardholders are expected to spend in excess of GBP2 billion purchasing online gifts - that's an increase of 39% on December 2004.

But with internet shopping growing in popularity at a rate of around 47% per year, it has never been more important for consumers to protect themselves against on-line card fraudsters.

Jon Varco, Head of E-commerce at Visa Europe explains: "On-line shopping is such a convenient way to purchase at any time of year but particularly during the busy festive season. There is no doubt that this form of shopping is on the rise, but given the success of initiatives such as chip and PIN in tackling fraud at retail outlets, shoppers need to be aware that criminals are now turning to the internet as a means of committing card fraud. As part of an industry wide anti-fraud initiative, Visa is urging internet shoppers to join over 1.65 million existing subscribers and protect themselves against on-line fraud by signing up to Verified by Visa."

Verified by Visa is an easy to use password protected service that verifies a cardholder's identity whilst shopping online. It helps to provide consumers and retailers with the same level of payment security when online shopping as is enjoyed in the physical world when shopping with a Visa card. A free service to the cardholder, Verified by Visa provides proof that a genuine cardholder and a genuine Visa retailer are taking part in the transaction.

According to Visa's research, Verified by Visa is giving consumers the peace of mind they may previously have lacked to enable them to shop on-line with confidence - 70% of consumers have admitted they would buy on the internet more often with Verified by Visa while 90% of those who previously would not have shopped online are now keen to do so. Currently over 9,000 retailers are signed up to Verified by Visa in the UK including NEXT, Dixons, Dabs, British Airways, John Lewis, Opodo and Tesco and numbers are growing fast.

Says Jon Varco: "Industry statistics from APACS suggest that while Card Not Present  fraud has increased by 29%, the internet part of this has only increased by 5% over the last year. We believe that this is attributed in part to the effectiveness of Verified by Visa as an on-line fraud prevention tool.

To minimise the risk of online fraud, Visa has the following top tips for internet shoppers this Christmas:

• 1) Don't hand over valuable card or bank account information to a fraudster. Don't give away your PINs or bank passwords to cold callers or in response to unsolicited emails
• 2) Only ever use a protected computer and make sure you have up to date anti-virus software and a firewall installed
• 3) Keep your cards and card details safe
• 4) Sign up while shopping on line to Verified by Visa. Check out the Visa website www.visaeurope.com/verified for details
• 5) Only shop at secure websites where the locked padlock security icon is on display
• 6) Make sure your browser is set to the highest level of security notification and monitoring
• 7) Check your statements as soon as you receive them and contact your bank immediately if you find a transaction you don't recognise
• 8) Consider using an internet only card so you can monitor transactions at a glance
• 9) Print out your order and get a hard copy of the retailers terms and conditions
• 10) Visit the websites www.getsafeonline.org, www.cardwatch.org.uk and www.banksafeonline.org.uk for more information about how to shop and bank safely

In Europe, there are almost 290 million Visa debit, credit and commercial cards. In the 12 months ending June 2005, those cards were used to make purchases and cash withdrawals to the value of over EUR1.05 trillion. Visa is one of the world's leading payment brands with over 1.3 billion cards generating EUR2.93 trillion ($USD3.7 trillion) in annual card sales volume. Visa has unsurpassed acceptance at approximately 24 million acceptance locations including close to one million ATMs. Visa is a Membership Association that plays a pivotal role in the global payments industry, developing innovative products and technologies to benefit its 21,000 Member financial institutions and their cardholders. For more information, visit www.visaeurope.com.

 
 
Source: Visa Europe

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