Viewpoint: Payment Security

Payment security is relevant to all cardholders.  According to the latest EAST research, the majority would contact their bank with an issue.

Most of us use payment cards on a regular basis for online transactions and for transactions at payment terminals.  Having something happen to your card while using a payment terminal can therefore be a great inconvenience.  For example a card can be retained by an ATM – while this might be at the request of your bank, it can it can also be due to fraudulent activity such as card trapping.  Also your card might be compromised at a terminal due to card skimming, or it might be compromised due to a data breach at a third party.

From January to April 2019 EAST ran a poll which asked the question ‘If you had a payment card related issue while using a payment terminal (ATM, POS or UPT) which party would you be most likely to contact?’  The results can be seen in the chart below.

Payment Security

  • The majority of the respondents (80%) would contact their card issuing bank
  • 12% would contact a central fraud line
  • 4% would contact the owner of the payment terminal or the merchant where payment was done
  • 4% would directly contact the police