Visa is piloting a new credit card, which the company hopes will help tackle card fraud.

The Emue Card, which is being trialled among Deloitte employees, features a keypad and display. When customers type in their PIN a unique code is displayed which is required to complete the transaction. This means that anyone who finds the card but does not know its PIN will be unable to use it.

Internet and phone fraud account for a large proportion of overall card fraud, because the perpetrator does not need to enter a PIN - only details found on the card itself are required.

The new Visa card could significantly reduce this kind of fraud, since anyone using it would need to enter the correct PIN in order to purchase goods or services, no matter where the transaction took place. The firm is also working on using the technology abroad, where card fraud is becoming increasingly commonplace.

“The card needs to be globally compatible: that means embossed characters for mechanical swipes, a magnetic strip for systems that require a signature, the fixed three digit security code and now the unique four figure code,” said Visa’s head of innovation, Sandra Alzetta.

“You have to remember that our cards work across the world and not every country or retailer has access to the level of technology we might be used to.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm and is filed under Banking, Credit Cards, Credit Ratings and Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.