Credit card giant Visa will slowly roll out a new feature which will allow the card holders to inform the banks automatically about their location. Gone are the days when the bank intimated you that you have used your credit card to buy an item. This practice might come to an end. Visa will be rolling out the location function which will be available in every smartphone.
Allowing the banks to know about your location might sound weird but this function is actually being appreciated by critics. Analysts have opined that if the function is properly used and applied then it also have the ability to cut down the number of credit card frauds. Banks and consumers lose billions of dollars every year and the figure has been growing and the loopholes in the system have become even more common.
With the growing number of frauds and losses, the banks and payment processors have been researching and making efforts to cut down on fraud. The recent announcement by Visa is just a small step towards improvement. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase said that the banks spend about $250 million on cybersecurity on an annual basis. Plans are being made to double the expense.
From April 2015, the banks will be updating the smartphone apps with Visa’s new location tracking software. The consumer will have an option to allow the bank to establish the home territory of the consumer at roughly 50 miles radius. When the person uses the credit card in that area, then such transactions will be considered as low risk fraud. But when the person goes out of the radius, then the bank will be notified of the location and this will lead to less credit card fraud.
Photo Credits: wp
