SecureShield: Campaign for Secure Transactions

As Indians, we are desensitized to certain social evils. Corruption. Dowry. Black Money. We see them often, and yet we may not really process them, until they injure us or our loved ones directly. I feel there’s another social evil, one that’s heavily hushed and downplayed by the industry and media: terrible practices in electronic payment security.

When I talk about this to my friends who use cards, I see the same level of indifference one might see about corruption. But once in awhile, I talk to someone who had to request a chargeback. Their story, of course, is very different. They quickly relate the pain of investigative questions that they were subjected to and the countless, diligent follow-ups they had to make before the money reappeared in their account. And it is far worse if they’d been travelling or if that was the only money they had.

At Zeta, we take security very seriously. We don’t allow users to add money to their Zeta account without a second-factor authentication (usually, OTP sent by the user’s bank like ICICI or SBI). And yet, every day, we get half a dozen messages from our users telling us that someone cheated them of their PIN, OTP and card details, charged their cards and added funds to some Zeta account. We process dozens of chargeback requests a day.

Honestly, far more people pay using cards than the number of people who use Zeta. If we see so many cases of card payment fraud on a daily basis, we can only imagine how many people lose money every day because of this.

In my previous post on payment security, I have described in detail card payment insecurities and how the prevailing practices are fundamentally flawed. For example, it is not uncommon for banks to say the following:

But every user knows that they cannot do a card transaction online or at a store without giving the card or card information to the merchant. The user has limited control over where he is entering the PIN, OTP or other details.

This must change. By default, users should have secure transactions. Nothing that the user is asked to share should make him vulnerable to fraud.

We built Zeta Super Card with this fundamental rule. We have now made it available for everyone.

Zeta Super Card with SecureShield

Zeta Super Card is a prepaid card that you can load at your will. It is available in digital form the moment you install our Android or iOS apps. You can request for a plastic card on our website or through our apps. You can use this card online for eCommerce transactions or at any stores with a swipe machine that accepts MasterCard. Although it can work at any card accepting merchant as any normal debit or credit card, it is the SecureShield feature of the Super Card that makes it incomparably more secure than traditional magnetic stripe or chip cards with PIN.

You can use dynamic SuperPIN in place of traditional 4 digit PINs. This ensures that even if the waiter at the restaurant speaks/shouts out your PIN or a CCTV camera watched you enter the PIN, you needn’t be worried. SuperPIN is valid only for 2 minutes and exactly for one transaction. SuperPIN will be available on your phone even when you are offline. You can safely transact any time at all shops that accept cards.

With LocationShield on, you can be sure that no fraudster can transact using your card details even if you inadvertently shared them over phone or email. The system will allow transaction only from machines close to you. If you are in Bangalore and if a fraudster in Mumbai gets your card details and OTP or PIN, he will still not be able to transact using them unless he is also in Bangalore. Irrespective of whether the fraudster is trying to do an e-commerce transaction or doing a transaction with skimmed card on a POS terminal, the transaction will be rejected and you will be notified!

Swipe2Pay

If you transact on ecommerce sites, you would be happy to know that you need not wait for OTP and enter your passwords. By now, you might know the vulnerabilities in that process. With Swipe2Pay, you just need to swipe on the secure dialog presented by Zeta on your phone to complete ecommerce transactions. It is fast, convenient and insanely secure.

Traditional PIN

If you still want to use a traditional 4 digit PIN, you can do so with an increased level of security offered by quick and instant PIN change mechanism available in your app.

Some of these security features are firsts of their kind in the world. But more importantly, they are made to be friendly and easy-to-use, not only for people like our friends but for people like our parents and grandparents, who are not technically inclined.

You must start using Zeta Super Card over any other card if you care for the safety of your funds. You should also give it to your mom, dad, grandparents or anyone else whose financial security you care about. Get your cards today!

Join the campaign of secure electronic transactions! #SecurityFirst @ZetaIndia