Payment Security Alliance to Focus On Biometrics, AI

The National Retail Federation and other major merchant associations have teamed up to form a new coalition aimed at improving payment security in the US. Other new members of the coalition include the National Association of Convenience Stores, the National Grocers Association, the Food Marketing Institute, First Data’s Star Network, and the Shazam network.

Called the Secure Payments Partnership, the new coalition will focus on user authentication, the establishment of open standards, and competition in network routing, among other payment security concerns.

In a statement announcing the new coalition, the National Retail Federation said it will seek to leverage recent technological innovations including “mobile payments, biometrics (such as fingerprints, facial recognition and iris scanning), the use of artificial intelligence, geolocation and IP verification.” The NRF also asserted that the US “currently lags behind the rest of the world in card payment security, largely because Visa and MasterCard control security standards without sufficient input from competing card networks, merchants, consumers and financial institutions.”

Putting aside the issue of the lack of input, Mastercard and Visa have recently been pursuing some bold new security measures in recent months, including trials of biometric payment card technology. That could offer some common ground with the Secure Payments Partnership; and ultimately any resulting collaboration should result in strong security for consumers.

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June 8, 2018 – by Alex Perala