Shopping on-line has always been considered risky by a vast majority of population that refuses to use its credit cards or debit cards in the net. With credit card frauds on the rise, measures to counter frauds and to assure consumers about safety of transactions have been the priority of the financial authorities – both on-line, in the virtual world and off-line, in the real world.

Recent steps by the Government of India seem to be in the right direction, where on-line card transactions are being made more secure through a slew of measures. It is being made mandatory from the 1st of August that consumers abide by certain steps in their online transactions.

Every on-line transaction comes with a set of three options that consumers could choose from. The first is registering one’s mobile number with the card provider. Once registration is done and authenticity of the mobile number is confirmed, every transaction done on-line would require a security code to be entered in the process, which would be sent to the registered mobile whenever a transaction is attempted using the card. This is a convenient option as only the consumer would know of the code that is sent to his registered mobile device. Further, any transactions attempted without the knowledge of the consumer using his card details would be brought to his attention immediately through his registered mobile.

The second option is that or registering certain computers with the card provider. A consumer can register any number of computers that he would normally use for card transactions. Once registered, transactions from the card can be done only using the specified computers, and not from any other computer. Though this is a good option, it restricts the scope of operations using the card, as the consumer needs to be physically present at the location of the computer for the transaction.

The final option uses a special identification device to counter misuse. An attempted transaction needs to be combined with a security Id that would be generated from the Security Device. The device would generate a code that would be valid for only 12 seconds. The code needs to be typed in along with the transaction. The code is unique and would be known only to the holder of the device.

Apart from these measures to make on-line financial transactions safe and secure, the Government is also coming up with legislations that would make it mandatory for consumers to produce Photo Identity proofs when using cards in regular transactions at merchant outlets. If this is enforced strictly, card thefts would prove futile if they are not accompanied with thefts of photo Identity proofs as well.

These steps, when implemented in a full-fledged way with all possible loopholes plugged, would prove a very positive reinforcement on the habit of using electronic cards for financial transactions, on-line and in the real world.