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Secure Mobile Systems - are you m-banking on it?

Mobile phones support secure (encrypted) data transfer on the internet (the same as is used on computers). So the level of security for the internet traffic is at the very least equal to computers.

Furthemore the data travelling ota (over the air), is to the best of my knowledge also encrypted. So far all the big players (banks, credit companies etc.) are installing, using and developing mobile payment enabling solutions.

So mobile payment is quite secure in this regard. If you however search for the nfc/rfid credit cards used you will find a lot of security issues.

So "dare I say" that mobile payment is more secure than, for example, credit cards? It certainly seems like it.

Furthermore, depending on the payment type a lot of extra security measures can be adopted.

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Comments: (1)

A Finextra member
A Finextra member 17 September, 2008, 00:00Be the first to give this comment the thumbs up 0 likes

Sure you can say it Mark. I can add a few other security plusses in favour of mobile phone over cards...a) You don't let a mobile phone out of your hand...unlike a card that you hand over for someone to take a quick unauthorised swipe across an electronic reader perhaps... b) if you lose it, you will realise much faster...and c) with CLEW like technology, 'card not present' transactions (e.g. internet, hotel bookings etc) have cardholder authenticated identification as opposed to negligible cardholder authentification otherwise.

I'm sure there are more examples but I think we've got enough to make the case for mobiles now.  And yes, I understand the issues with RFID/NFC in the contactless payments arena - there is still work to do there to shore up the local scanning breach.  However, this is not limited to mobiles - it is a current flaw in contactless card payment technology. 

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