"Egypt is leading regional efforts to advance payment card security," said Tarek Elhousseiny, VisaVisa's General Manager for North and West Africa. "The fraud rate for payment cards issued in Egypt remains lower than both the global and regional average. The Forum is leading a united effort to maintain Egypt's low fraud rate and VisaVisa is proud to support these local initiatives promoting safe payments."

VisaVisa has worked closely with banks and merchants to develop and implement technology enabled services that validate payment cards online and authenticate the cardholder including Verified by VisaVisa (VbV) and Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2).

"Fraud has changed from an individual crime of opportunity to an organised crime of process," said Valery Assaf, VisaVisa's Regional Fraud Control Manager. "Electronic payments are considerably less prone to counterfeit than cash payments, but they require a new kind of collaborative effort to prevent fraud. VisaVisa offers a number of tools to provide real-time authentication of a website visitor's identity and is developing these measures to ensure that its cardholders shopping online are more protected than ever before."

"E-commerce is an increasingly important element of the global economy. According to the Nielson report on online shopping trends, more than 60% of online consumers worldwide use payment cards," said Tarek Elhousseiny. "In this environment it is critically important that online purchases are secure. VisaVisa is dedicated to accomplishing this goal by working with customers, banks and merchants to institute common, secure authentication protocols that allow consumers to shop the global marketplace with ease of mind."

The National Fraud Forum of Egypt provides a platform for industry experts to exchange the latest knowledge and information regarding payment card security and coordinate unified efforts to continue protecting Egypt's consumers. In January 2007, the Forum and its member institutions became the first in Africa to coordinate a nationwide payment card security organisation when it signed a Constitution empowering representatives to share fraud-related information openly.

-Ends-

About VisaVisa
VisaVisa operates the world's largest retail electronic payments network providing processing services and payment product platforms. This includes consumer credit, debit, prepaid and commercial payments, which are offered under the VisaVisa, VisaVisa Electron, Interlink and PLUS brands. VisaVisa enjoys unsurpassed acceptance around the world and Visa/PLUS is one of the world's largest global ATM networks, offering cash access in local currency in more than 170 countries.

For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com

Or contact:
Rasha Teima at TRACCS Egypt
Tel: (+202) 33046860
Fax: (+202) 33031219
Email: rasha@traccs.net

© Press Release 2008

 

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