MasterCard trumpets online SecureCode

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 8 Dec 2005 at 12:41

With online shopping yet again expected to prove a hassle-free way of getting through the present-buying tasks this Christmas, MasterCard is launching a campaign to raise awareness of its SecureCode system to give shoppers an extra level of protection.

The risks of online fraud are two-fold. Firstly, it's a fast-growing problem. APACS reported that in the first half of the year, some £90.6m was lost to 'card not present' fraud, either through mail order or Internet and phone transactions. The figure marked a 29 per cent increase year on year, and the majority of that fraud type - £58m - took place online.

Secondly, shoppers appear blithely unaware and unresponsive to the problem. Research carried out by Experian showed that 10 per cent of Britons are simply not that careful with their card details and would be willing to give them to friends or colleagues. Some 62 per cent assume online fraud is something that happens to other people and 40 per cent said that they had no idea whether or not they had fallen victim to the crime.

There was some good news from the APACS survey, however, which was that overall, fraud figures had fallen for the first time in 10 years. The drop of 13 per cent was put down to the chip and PIN system which by then had been broadly introduced.

It's good news in that MasterCard's SecureCode system is a similar idea. Already having been taken up by the likes of Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Halifax, Natwest, Bank of Scotland and Mint, the system allows you to register a PIN of your choice for online purchases.

Some 15,000 merchants support SecureCode, including Next, Dixons, British Airways and John Lewis, and each transaction must be authenticated by entering the PIN in a pop up window, which is verified by your bank, so it's not something that the merchant gets to see.

When you register, you are also asked to give some personal information - something only you would know - which is displayed each time you input the PIN. This will help ensure you don't become the victim of a phishing campaign and are duped into entering your details into a fake site.

It is unclear what the take up of the service has been to date. We asked three participating banks what percentage of their customers had signed up for the service, but have yet to receive any figures.

You can see a list of participating banks with links to the respective pages to sign up to the service on the .