PNC adds IDEMIA’s dynamic CVV2 code to boost commercial card security

PNC Bank is piloting IDEMIA’s motion code card which offers a dynamic CVV2 security code for its commercial clients in an effort to combat card not present fraud.

PNC’s Treasury Management group is leading the test, which is a joint effort between PNC, IDEMIA, Visa and TSYS. The Pittsburgh unit of PNC Financial Services Group plans to offer the card to its current customers in early 2019 after completing the pilot.

"As EMV chip technology addressed card-present fraud, there is an increased demand in the United States for security measures specifically designed for e-commerce," Megan Heinze, North America head of financial institutions at IDEMIA, said in a Nov. 7 press release from PNC.

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The implementation of EMV cards in the U.S. has had a dramatic impact on reducing card present fraud with Visa reporting counterfeit card fraud at U.S. EMV chip-enabled merchants is down 75 percent between September 2015 and March 2018. However, as fraudsters appear to be foiled at store payment terminals, they have moved on to easier targets — e-commerce and telephone ordering channels. Aite reports card-not-present fraud is on the rise and expected to reach $7.5 billion by 2020.

IDEMIA’s motion card that can dynamically change the CVV2 security code the purchaser uses to prove he or she has the card in their possession. The standard CVV2 number is a static code that appears on the back of most payment cards next to the signature panel. The Motion Code basically replaces the printed CVV2 code with a miniature screen that automatically generates a refreshed code through an algorithm.

While this technology has been available for some time, it has not been actively promoted due to a key implementation hurdle. Last year IDEMIA claims to have solved the implementation challenge because Visa's new dCVV2 specification code has the ability to authenticate the motion code algorithms. Previously, for issuing banks to offer a dynamic CVV2 payment card there had been the need to integrate a dedicated server to authenticate the card.

“Almost all U.S. consumer and commercial credit cards now use EMV chip technology, which significantly reduces card-present counterfeit fraud since the EMV chip produces a one-time, dynamic code needed to process the transaction," Christopher Ward, executive vice president and head of product management at PNC Treasury Management, said in the press release. "Now, we can further protect online and other card not present transactions with this new technology, with the ultimate goal of making every transaction, whether in store or online, as secure as possible."