B.I.E.Blogging In England

A Channel 4 investigation has found that a new contactless payment card from Barclays is especially vulnerable to fraud.

The new cards work in a similar way to Oyster cards on London Transport, in that they can be swiped at a terminal although only low level transactions can be made in this way. Barclays is not the only organisation to have introduced these cards which are appealing as they can potentially speed up transactions in-store. However the fraud risk will be a concern.

The investigation found that simply holding a smartphone with the right software near to the card would be enough to get private account details from it; it could take all the information listed on the front of Visa cards though would not be able to take details such as the PIN or CVV code not embedded in the card’s chip.

Barclays said that it was now talking to retailers to see that they were carrying out “adequate and robust” checks. Though I can see the benefit of these cards in that they would definitely speed up transactions and could signal the end of queuing at the checkout, the risks appear obvious and the investigation has done everyone a favour by clearly identifying them. What do you think?