Card tokenisation to make online payments safer

Hyderabad: With card tokenisation set to come into place from July 1, there are many questions being raised about the system and why is it important. Tokenisation is a process by which card details are replaced by a unique code thus making online payments safer and secure without the need to share full card details. […]

Hyderabad: With card tokenisation set to come into place from July 1, there are many questions being raised about the system and why is it important. Tokenisation is a process by which card details are replaced by a unique code thus making online payments safer and secure without the need to share full card details.

The debit and credit card numbers in this system are saved only with the banks and not with the merchants.

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How does this system work?

If you are a customer whose card details are already stored in different merchant platforms namely Amazon, Swiggy, Zomato and others, then the existing card details will get erased.

In order to generate the token, one needs to enter their 16-digit card details while making the payment and tick the box for generating token. As a second-factor authentication an OTP will be sent to the customer and upon entering the OTP, a unique 16-digit token gets generated for that particular merchant platform. This token will be displayed to the merchant and not the card details – which was the case earlier.

Each time one needs to make payment, the last four digits of the card are shown thus providing a safety net to the data. New users can also generate the token even after the deadline of July 1 and only the older card number will get erased from all merchant platforms.

Simpler and safer online payments

“India is the first country to make CoFT mandatory and with this system one can be rest assured that their card number and details are secured and safe. Overall 180 million tokens have already been created. With tokenization, one can also go back to their bank and get a list of where all their card data has been stored and also delist their card details from any of their merchant platforms of their choice,” says Ravi Datla, V-P, digital products, South Asia, Mastercard.

He also mentioned that by tokenising card details, unauthorised persons or hackers will be not able to use the token even if they get access. “The process of tokenisation will be based on consumers’ consent and the ones who do not opt for it would have to manually enter the details like card number, expiry, etc. every time to make an online payment. The sensitive information about consumers’ debit and credit cards will only be with issuer banks and their networks, like Mastercard,” he said.