Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
June 11, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Credit card fraud of
any kind, just might get a little harder thanks to Mastercard’s
current Blockchain project. Last Thursday, a patent
application went public that shows that
MasterCard is experimenting with a public blockchain, which it
hopes will improve the identity verification process related to
credit card ownership.
More specifically, this possible
solution is intended to be used when a customer attempts to make a
purchase, ostensibly to prevent someone using a credit card that
does not belong to them.
From 2012 to 2016, in the USA, 13
million customer complaints were reportedly filed with the Federal
Trade Commission and 42 percent of them were related to credit card
fraud. According to an outside report on the subject, this actually
means that 1.3 million of all of the customer complaints had to do
with this.
The question mark that this raises
related to Mastercard’s Blockchain project is that the majority of
these credit card related complaints apparently began with
telephone conversations in which the offenders stole the data from
their victims.
Because of how Mastercard’s future
Blockchain will function, even these instances of fraud will be
able to be prevented, if everything goes according to their
plan.
Judging by CoinDesk’s report on the
subject as well as the patent application, it all begins with the
user uploading an image with his or her payment card to the
Blockchain, which is then encoded and encrypted with public and
private keys, similar to how a Cryptocurrency wallet
looks.
In connection with this, it’s
important to note that the payment card’s data is never accessible
until a payment is initiated. Just like what Cryptocurrency
networks aspire to be doing, the MasterCard Blockchain aims to work
anywhere that Mastercards are accepted, as of now.
Once a payment begins, for example,
in a retail store, the Blockchain will be able to decrypt the
picture of the payment card, apparently with the private keys of
both parties, who are involved.
This effectively means that their
core users are any MasterCard holders as well as any businesses
that accept MasterCard, which signifies that their Blockchain could
possibly become the biggest yet.
As any Blockchain project gets
bigger, concerns related to its security become more serious as
well. To combat this, MasterCard cites the importance of using a
different kind of encrypted code, called machine-readable code, to
send each transaction through a point of sale device.
In the end, this project could be
the one to revolutionize traditional payments, except for one
caveat. While on the one hand, MasterCard claims that the whole
process will be completely secure and impenetrable, they add that
all “broadcasted” information can be seen by anyone.
If this is in fact, the case, then
questions arise related to how this is any different from a company
selling customer data for profit, such as this year’s scandal with
Facebook.
Even more credence is added to this
possibility in Coin Desk’s report, which
suggests that merchants will be able to sell certain parts of
customer payment data for profit. If these ethical concerns are
ironed out, then again, this could be the specific project that
moves the Blockchain even closer to fully taking over the financial
world.
By: BGN Editorial Staff
News:
Mastercard
Blockchain
Cryptocurrencies