Bibit has entered an agreement with Bank of Ireland/Nova joint venture euroConex to adopt the Verified by Visa credit card authentication protocol.
The collaboration will enable Bibit’s merchants in the United Kingdom and Ireland to accept secure payments using the Visa technology. Bibit’s deal with euroConex follows a similar agreement with Citibank for the German and Swiss markets. Both partnerships are part of Bibit’s strategy to roll-out this technology to merchants across Europe.
Visa’s new Verified by Visa service allows issuers to verify cardholders’ identities for on-line transactions in real-time, thus eliminating one of the major causes of credit card fraud. As a result, Visa is offering protection for on-line retailers who adopt Verified by Visa as they will no longer be liable for card-not-present charge-backs, in Europe immediately and from April 2003 globally.
Among the first Bibit clients to adopt the technology is Psion, for online sales of handheld computers. Fraud risk has so prohibited Psion from delivering its products to addresses other than the credit card billing address. The company believes improved customer authentication will give it more flexibility in fulfilling online orders.
Seperately, Visa has announced that US online auction market uBid is to offer shoppers the Verified by Visa option for making payments at its Web site.