Credit cards have now become an integral part of every American's life. TransUnion, one of the major credit bureaus, reports that there were more than 430 million credit card accounts in the U.S. at the beginning of 2019. And this number keeps growing continuously. So does fraud. According to Rippleshot, a company providing fraud analytics software, the number of fraud victims among credit cardholders increased from 6,6 million in 2014 to 7.6 million in 2017. Therefore, it is not surprising that credit companies are trying to apply to the newest technologies to better protect customers and their finances.
Contactless cards can deservedly be called the main trend of 2019. It must be admitted that America is a bit left from many other countries in this matter. However, over the past year, a huge number of credit card companies began to issue new and even reissue existing cards with contactless technology. In 2020, this trend will only intensify.
It is expected that during this year, a huge number of merchants will acquire tap-to-pay checkout terminals. Even the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is to launch contactless payments by the end of the year. And this is definitely a great thing to happen! Such a payment method is not only fast and easy to use but also recognized as one of the most secure. Contactless payment fraud turns out to be quite a rare case.
Another move gaining popularity is payments through mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay. A study by Mercator Advisory Group, an independent research and advisory services firm, shows that the percentage of digital wallet use in the U.S. has grown from 48% in 2018 to 60% in 2019. In many cases, mobile payments use biometric data (fingerprint or face) to authorize the card payment, which itself in addition to its convenience is also very safe. During this process, the credit card information is not actually transmitted or stored.
The next payment method, which will undoubtedly get a boost in 2020, is integrated payment experiences. Those are used to carry out payments for goods and services in mobile apps. Integrated payments are protected by tokenization. It means that the transferred data is additionally safely encrypted. This method is supposed to become more widespread and accessible through different smart devices. Besides, security improvements will also affect payments made on the Internet through a web browser.