E-carte Bleue: A New Solution for Secure Online Shopping
16-56-2004
By: Boris Rousseau
Have you ever been worried about using your credit card for online shopping?
Now a new initiative from 5 major French banks (Credit Lyonnais, Societe Generale, Banque Populaire, Caisse d'Epargne and La Poste) offers an optional service for Visa owners that is 100% web oriented. Under this service, for each checkout of your online shopping cart, your bank delivers a virtual card number only usable for the current transaction. Any attempt to get your credit card number will be in vain, as once the transaction is finished, the number expires. This project, virtual dynamic e-Carte Bleue service, originally launched by Societe Generale was developed in collaboration with the Carte Bleue grouping and Caisse d'Epargne. The technological partner for the project is France Telecom Orbiscom, a joint venture between France Telecom and the Dublin based Irish company, Orbiscom, which specialises in electronic payment solutions for financial institutions.
All the banks belonging to the Carte Bleue grouping will be able to market this new service. The e-Carte Bleue is offered to any Carte Bleue Visa holder. It can be used for online shopping on all Internet merchant sites throughout the world, which accept payment by bank card.
Although e-Carte Bleue is a new service, you can still shop online as you would do with your real visa card. It also insures for free the delivery of the purchased items. Furthermore, payment facilities such as payment on reception of the purchased items or paying in 2 or 3 times without expenses will be included in the service.
Obviously, each bank would choose its own pricing policy for this service. It is expected that some will charge a set up fee then charge each transaction while other banks will charge a flat fee per month, irrespective of the number of purchases made.
Such a service seems like a great way for more secure online transactions and perhaps Irish banks will consider it for their customers, who like me, often order online for books, concert tickets, etc.
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