Mexico’s BBVA Bancomer in first deployment of new Gemalto verification system

Security specialist Gemalto claims it has cleared a major blockage for mobile banking, as Mexican bank BBVA Bancomer enrolled 100, 000 subscribers thanks to the security firm’s new verification system.

The bank, which has 20 million customers, countered the emerging new threat of Card-Not-Present (CNP) fraud using Gemalto’s Dynamic Code Verification system CVV/CVC. The system uses a validation server and associated services to protect the bank and the subscriber from identity fakers. The BBVA Bancomer banking installation will be the first time that the mobile version of the technology has been used.

The mobile security system was created using Gemalto’s Ezio Mobile software development kit. The developers created a new dynamic code verification new feature for BBVA Bancomer’s mobile wallet application that replaces static 3-digit codes with a time-based dynamic CVV/CVC. Moving from a static to a dynamic system allows the mobile security system to create a unique code for each individual transaction. The system will help to neutralise the rise of mobile related eCommerce fraud linked to stolen card numbers, claims Gemalto. In Mexico eCommerce grew 34% between 2013 and 2014 while Mexican banks registered almost 2.9 million cases of suspected fraud.

The Gemalto-enabled BBVA Bancomer mobile wallet securely creates and digitally stores banking card related data on the customer’s mobile device. It is engineered to be simple and unobtrusive, so that it doesn’t ruin the user experience of online shopping and disrupt the easy use of a smartphone, said Hervé Bayle, VP of eBanking for the Americas at Gemalto. “Our system minimizes the impact on existing merchant-acquirer-issuer infrastructures,” said Bayle.

Mobile operators could make a fortune in financial services but trust is a big stumbling block in mobile banking, said Hugo Najera Alva, General Director of Digital Banking of BBVA Bancomer. “Mobile Banking and eCommerce are expanding rapidly, but lack of trust can prevent some customers from embracing it,” said Alva, “the response to this new system has been outstanding: in the first weeks of the project we already have more than 100,000 active users.”