In his recent commentary, Lyle Beckwith continues to push the myopic perspective of PIN technology. Unfortunately, his singular focus on credit card security ignores the need to protect consumers’ retail transactions in-store and online. Last year on Cyber Monday alone, retailers racked up a record $3 billion-plus in online sales, according to Adobe Digital Index. Beckwith fails to consider the huge retail data breaches that occurred through malware and which would not have been prevented by the use of PINs.
We have long stated EMV transition is an important step in the process of data security, but it is not a silver bullet. In other countries, the transition has taken two to five years. Curiously, there has been a move away from PINs in both Canada and Europe. In fact, in Europe 20 percent of transaction volume is now EMV contactless, which doesn’t require PIN or signature authentication.