As a large number of people use their credit cards while their stay in hotels and also the number of people who have access to this information, it has always been a matter of concern for hotel authorities to safeguard their guests credit card and avoid credit card frauds, scams and identity theft.
Almost 15 top hotel chains have now joined hands to fight against credit card frauds and scams. Top hotel chains such as Hilton Worldwide, Marriot International, Hyatt Hotels Corp. have come together. They announced that would work jointly under a project coordinated by non-profit association HTNG.
If recent reports are to be believed, 38% of credit card cases were from the hotel and hospitality industry. This therefore led for a joint universal approach. Compared to other industries such as finance, retail, restaurant and bars, it is much more difficult to curb the crimes as data is recorded for long periods of time after the consumer leaves the hotel and this information is accessed by many individuals.
Fugitives and swindlers have found new ways to beat the system and unfortunately always come up with unusual methods to cheat people who used their credit cards. As the credit card bill is received by the end of the month, the helpless victim would take an entire month to realize that he has been cheated. This reflected a bad name to the hotels in question and affected brand value. Even worse, in smaller hotels the POS machine can be reached over the counter and sensitive information can be stolen if an outlaw fix a magnetic reader to it.
A number of hotels are now looking at ‘tokenization’ as a solution to this problem. Tokenization means sensitive data received from the credit card during a transaction are saved in one central location, which is secure. This information may be used by a brand, gateway or any 3rd party which is eventually replaced in hotel systems. These substitutes are called ‘tokens’. Using these tokens, a transaction can be completed but render no effect if they hacked remotely.
As a part of initiate by HTNG, participant hotel chains have already started considering tokenization. Tokenization is a good approach but steps will have to be undertaken to regularly tweak the program and consider and recognize all possible loopholes. If electronic thieves will be relentlessly be trying to beat this system, HTNG should always stay a step ahead if they want their initiative to be a success.