Discover Card reports 120% rise in use of alternate credit card numbers
Consumer usage of the Secure Online Account Numbers security program at Discover Financial Services, the issuer of the Discover Card, more than doubled in 2006 over 2005, director of e-commerce Steve Furman says.
Discover’s Secure Online Account Numbers program enables consumers to make online purchases without entering their actual credit card account number onto a retailer’s web site. Instead, the alternate account number program, which is based on “controlled payment number” technology from Orbiscom, provides the consumer with an alternate number at the point of checkout. The alternate number is later matched during payment settlement to the actual account number, which is kept in a secure database at Discover.
“We’ve never had any instances of a secured alternate account number involved in fraud,” Furman says, noting that Discover has used the Orbiscom program for about two and a half years.
Discover has not provided incentives to encourage use of the program, but it has increased marketing of it in the past year through e-mail marketing, direct mail inserts in billing statements, and detailed instructions on its web site about how the program works, Furman says.
Consumers have the option to download Orbiscom software to their computer, in which case the software detects when a consumer has entered a checkout session and pops up a window offering the option of paying through the alternate number program. To pay through the program, the consumer enters her ID number and password, then instantly receives an alternate account number provided by Discover.
For consumers who prefer not to use software downloaded to their computer, Discover also offers an Orbiscom on-demand browser-based version. During the checkout process, the consumer would open up a new browser, go to the Discover Card site and click a link to call up a window for entering an ID number and password.
The Orbiscom program has proved particularly helpful for small, little-known retail web sites, where shoppers may be hesitant to enter their actual credit card numbers because of security concerns, Furman says.
Diane Shaib, executive vice president of Orbiscom, says use of her company’s controlled payment number system is also growing at banks that issue Visa and MasterCard payment cards. The system is also used by PayPal, the online payment service from eBay Inc. The volume of spending with controlled payment numbers grew 90% in 2006 over 2005 and 60% in 2005 over 2004, Orbiscom says.
Back...
