Soon make payments with your Emirates ID
Emirates Identity Authority (Eida) said on Tuesday it will commence testing of paying at retail stores using Emirates ID from Thursday.
“The new card is equipped with high-tech chips, which will change the map of the retail sector in the UAE. The chip will not store any personal information about consumers and thus there is no violation of the privacy of customers,” Dr Ali Mohamed Al Khouri, Director General, Eida, said during his opening address at the 15th edition of the “Cards and Payments Middle East 2014” conference.
Eida said it is working with financial institutions to allow residents to make e-payments through identity cards and introduce digital signature to make payments using smart phones.
“I also expect to expand the use of Emirates ID cards as an introductory card in the banking sector in the near future,” he added, drawing attention to the authority’s agreements with financial institutions in the country for the use of the ID cards in enabling the card holders to reliably authenticate and complete their financial transactions with a high degree of security.
“This digital transformation will enable the UAE to achieve a quantum leap in its competitive edge as it helps save millions of dollars that the public and private sectors as a result of fraud and related expenses to curb it.”
“This will be done through actually linking the smart phones and ID cards with each other by downloading data into the phone chip so the user can complete his transactions and related fee payments using his phone. This will be a simple process that takes no more than entering a pass code. You will soon see mobile phone users benefitting from identity verification data stored in their phones and completing transactions with the support of digital signature,” he said.
According to Al Khouri, the total spend via smart payment systems across the world in outlets reached $4 trillion in 2013.
Losses happening due to credit and debit card frauds across the world in 2012 had reached $11.27 billion, whereas the losses suffered by retail outlets for the same reason were to the tune of $580 million.
“These outlets spend $6.5 billion annually to fight debit and credit card frauds. The losses suffered by card issuers primarily happen at the point of sale as a result of fake card use. As for the traders, they suffer losses during transactions in which the cards are not provided, such as Internet sites, contact centers or mail requests.
“Nearly 59 per cent of transactions worth a total of $37 billion are completed using debit cards. And these are verified via normal signature and 85 per cent of all fraudulent transactions happened using debit cards, which means that $1.15 billion worth of losses due to fraud, out of a total of $ 1.35 billion, involved hand signatures,” Al Khouri revealed.