MasterCard requires merchant sales slips to show just last four digits of credit card numbers by 2005; Visa will allow this option

By Edna Koh
FINANCE CORRESPONDENT

IT IS the stuff that thrillers and nightmares are made of: that someone will stealthily rummage through your rubbish bin or waste-paper basket in the dead of night for intact credit card slips.

But come April 2005, MasterCard credit card- holders - and possibly some Visa cardholders - will be able to rest easy.

The reason: even if that sinister someone gets his hands on these sales slips, they will be worthless to him.

Instead of seeing the full 16-digit credit card number - as is the case currently - the crook will see only the last four numbers, with the first 12 having been masked out. The expiry date of the card, now displayed openly, will also be blocked out.

Currently, receipts issued by a small number of merchants, including online bookseller Amazon.com, have only a limited display of such vital card information. But with identity theft on the rise, MasterCard is giving merchants that accept its cards until April 2005 to truncate account numbers.

This is a global initiative, and extends to Singapore, MasterCard's country manager (Singapore), Mr T.V. Seshadri, told The Straits Times yesterday.

Rival Visa, meanwhile, has given merchants in the United States until 2006 to do the same. In Singapore and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, however, account truncation is 'an optional measure for financial institutions and their merchants to adopt', said a spokesman.

Visa USA may be charging ahead because identity theft in the world's biggest economy is a growing problem.

'Identity thieves thrive on discarded receipts and documents containing consumers' information,' Visa USA chief executive Carl Pascarella was quoted by Associated Press as saying.

'Visa's new policy will protect consumers by limiting the information these thieves can access.'

In Singapore, however, bankers said that abuse of card numbers arising from the theft of sales drafts was rare.

What was more prevalent was 'skimming' - that is, the illegitimate copying of information on an entire magnetic stripe by criminals. This information is then placed on a new card, and used to make fraudulent transactions.

Still, a spokesman from United Overseas Bank, the largest card issuer here, said it would comply with MasterCard's requirement. It will also do the same with merchants that take Visa cards, though that is not mandatory.

The new rules can be enforced only through member banks because the banks are the ones which have direct relationships with card-accepting merchants.

In order for the new sales slips to show only a limited number of credit card digits, the terminals placed on shop counters will need to have their software upgraded.

This is not a difficult exercise, Mr Robert Choo, the general manager of Hypercom, the largest provider of electronic data capture terminals here, said.

However, he said it was too early to tell if the cost of each terminal, which is sold to the banks at $600 and upwards, and subsequently deployed at merchant outlets, will increase.

Card users yesterday welcomed the move.

Said civil servant Elizabeth Kon: 'It's a good move, as it obviously consolidates security measures relating to credit cards. But what most people fear is Internet security, or that databases will be hacked into. These issues still need to be dealt with.'