FAC Collaborates To Tackle Credit Card Fraud In Latin America

by Phillip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

05 June 2009

Bermuda-based First Atlantic Commerce (FAC), a leading international multi-currency payment and risk management solutions provider, and Promocion y Operation S.A de C.V (PROSA), the largest provider of electronic transactions in Latin America, have collaborated to reduce online credit card fraud in the region.

According to a statement from FAC, it has implemented a unique, Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode cardholder “authentication-only" solution for PROSA that allows the processor to submit 3-D Secure requests to FAC’s MPI in advance of the payment authorisation to provide more versatility for PROSA and their acquiring banks in Mexico and Latin America.

PROSA operates one of the most important payment processing switches in the world, processing more than 1.3 billion transactions annually and facilitating the majority of transactions made at point of sale terminals throughout Mexico and Latin America, including American Express, Visa and MasterCard, as well as the ATMs of HSBC, Santander, Scotiabank, Banorte, Banjercito, Banca Afirme, Interacciones, Ixe, Invex, Banregio, and other financial institutions in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Latin America.

FAC’s 3-D Secure solution for PROSA enables their acquiring banks to determine chargeback liability for their online merchants in advance of the actual payment transaction authorization, thereby providing advance information to assist with reducing fraud and mitigating risk.

Banks on the PROSA platform can now submit Verified by Visa and MasterCard® SecureCode consumer authentication only requests securely across the Internet to FAC servers; the authentication response is then returned to PROSA for credit card authorization, all within a few seconds.

The unique 3-D Secure™ implementation was designed for the burgeoning Mexican online business market, where there is sophisticated online credit card processing, but limited online transactional risk management, and is serving various industries across the Region from airlines and hotels to large retailers.

“PROSA Mexico was looking for a way to reduce increasing online credit card fraud in the Mexican market. This type of implementation was not available domestically so we worked with PROSA to develop a solution to pre-authenticate all of their online consumer transactions in advance of the online credit card payment,” said CEO of FAC, Andrea Wilson.

“Our Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode™ only solution is expected to significantly reduce credit card fraud for online merchants in Mexico and Latin America based on the Card Association rules governing 3-D Secure™ online chargeback liability shift.”

“As a result of the implementation, Mexican acquiring banks and merchants can see an immediate reduction in online Visa and MasterCard credit card fraud; in some cases by up to 85%,” concluded FAC.

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