Financial Times: Safeguarding credit cards in cyberspace

Ellen Kelleher reports on Verified by Visa.

The world's biggest card network has put millions of dollars towards a campaign to convince its issuers and retailers to adopt Verified by Visa - a system that requires consumers to sign up for passwords that confirm their identities with issuing banks. So far, most banks and about 6,000 retailers have agreed to take part. "The official word is that they want to reduce fraud," says Avivah Litan of the Gartner Group. "But they firmly believe that credit card usage and purchasing will go up if there is less fraud." International losses from online fraud, which reached $1.64bn over the past 12 months, almost doubled in the past two years, Gartner Group research indicates. Last year, e-sales totalled about $91bn.