The payment card industry push for EMV has little to do with
security and everything to do with increasing profits from retailers and
ultimately consumers. The costs to implement EMV far exceed the benefits (see http://paymentnetworks.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-regressive-movement-to-europay.html
) and yet the main stream media continue to trumpet the industry line without really
examining their true motives. The fact
that using the current infrastructure and requiring PIN entry fixes the problem
of skimming, scraping, and card not present (CNP) fraud does not seem to matter
to anyone. Lazy reporting, and promoting a corporate agenda are the feed for
today’s media and that is not a surprise to anyone. There are still some jewels in the tarnished media crown that take
the time to unearth real news and discover the dialectic pulse that vibrates
across all human endeavors. Their numbers dwindle and recently National Public
Radio (NPR) published a puff piece that demonstrates how problematic any
reporting from the most venerable of media outlets has become.
The NPR report on EMV conversion naturally discussed the
completely discredited defense against fraud motivation, but then almost hit on
the truth. In the article (see: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/01/05/375164839/u-s-credit-cards-tackle-fraud-with-embedded-chips-but-no-pins
) the reporter (Jim Zarroli) almost came close to the truth but ultimately
spouted the corporate line “PINs would actually turn off U.S. customers”
without so much as a look at the supposed marketing survey that produced such malarkey.
So the listening public gets the false impression that EMV
protects against modern day financial data intercept attacks and that the
expense for this needless conversion to an expensive infrastructure that functions
exactly the same as the current infrastructure (in key aspects) is due to
issuers looking after the public’s well-being. Is this really the same network reporting on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security
Agency (NSA) antics while waging the terrorism war?
The story in the Halcyon days might have brought light to the
payment services industry lobbying efforts in Congress, their loss of fees
because of Dodd Frank, their loss of monopoly due to mobile payments and other
innovative approaches to payment? However now the long suffering public hears a
puff piece sounding a lot like the industry’s PR shills. Real reporting does
not pay anymore however NPR used to have a reputation for good reporting. Let’s hope this report is an aberration and
not the coming trend.
Next Blog: Payment
Trends in the Coming Year
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