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Japan facing credit card number shortage

mainichi.jp

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Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#311
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prevalence of credit cards has baffled me for decades now. I admit I have one, but the only thing I need it for is to buy things from webshops that don't cater to the Dutch market. Every webshop that's vaguely aware of the Dutch market supports iDeal, which is specifically designed to handle internet payment and doesn't involve sharing any sensitive information with merchants or other unknown parties; my bank han…

That's nice... as long as you only buy stuff from your country.

Steam supports it, as do the big local webshops, like Bol and Cool Blue. (No idea if Amazon does; I haven't checked there in ages. I don't think Amazon.com ever did.)

Smaller specialty game webshops sadly don't.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#312
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first digits are a header identifying the type of the card, (visa, mastercard...) and probably other characteristics. The main problem is that in Japan everybody has like 5 credit cards, because every big company has its own financial branch and issues cards (maybe to profit from a "reservoir" effect of the accounts?). So you have a credit card linked to your clothes shop, one from your supermarket, one from Raku…

Five cards per person is less than a billion cards, vs a quadrillion possible combinations of 15 digits. A drop in the bucket

You forgot that these 16 digits have a structure, with the 4 or even 8 first ones being determined by the type (visa, mastercard) and the bank/country, etc.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#313
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, think again, in either the merchant's or bank's perspective: how can they tell you are really who you claimed to be? That's the core question and why all the hustle. And again, even some design can perfectly solve that problem, there are additional problems to resolve: how to implement that change with reasonable cost, within reasonable time frame and with good user experience? And most importantly, does not bre…

Isn't what the GP mentioned how the "verified by Visa" works? You enter your card details, and you're redirected to your bank's site to authenticate the transaction. You use whatever (normally 2fa) method to login to the bank's page, OK the transaction, and are redirected back to the merchant's site.

Yes, the implementation is pretty rubbish, but the concept is fine

It's how to authenticate and authorise an offline cardless transaction that's hard

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#314

Strange that systems have limitations like this. I know, there's always design trade offs. This is just one of those things that looks like it should be last_number += 1

I hear that would be insecure, just like SSNs.

It doesn't have to literally be incremented, my thinking was just that you can't really run out of numbers.

But then again if they used something like a 32 bit int and don't us sequential numbers, I suppose retrofitting for a 64 bit int might take a decent amount of work.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try giving a user a private key for making CNP transactions, I have that! > and all you will have achieved is replicating the user experience of bitcoin. I've never used bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. What's the user experience like?

> I've never used bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. What's the user experience like? I would describe the first-time-user onboarding procedure as "complex enough that it's unlikely to become mainstream"

Then it doesn't reflect my experience of cardless transactions with a private key. Everyone uses it here to sign bank transactions online, for a popular phone-number based transaction service and for government official purposes, like signing your tax declaration form. I have it on the phone, and other apps can request a signature via an API, at which point I get prompted with information on who and what I'm signing for, and for my six digit PIN.

Onboarding is elaborate to avoid fraud, but not really complicated, and basically a necessity if you don't want to have to go to a bank office to manage your account and make transactions.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#316
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of those use cases probably shouldn’t be supported. It would cut down on fraud if we disallowed card not present transactions on unknown devices.

That's an ideal. You have to be reasonable with the expectation that people are going to want to use their card in places where it isn't securely convenient to do so. Otherwise, you will end up creating a niche with no mass market appeal, and there's really no point in developing out infrastructure unless you're replacing the old one completely. Again, credit cards exist for convenience. If it's security you're aimin…

Chip cards are already secure because they use proper cryptography. But online payments are done without any cards whatsoever. For example paypal and webmoney are payment methods of their own.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then see customers complaining about the annoying extra steps. 3D Secure affects conversion rates adversely which means customers are generally happier without it and don't mind the fraud risk (as is consistent with the rest of this discussion on the thread).

> And then see customers complaining about the annoying extra steps. PIN in stores and 2FA online is already the norm in the developed world. It didn't exactly cause a disaster for retail. There are a few countries where it still isn't completely rolled out (US being the most notable one) but those are now outliers. > customers are generally happier without it Again I think this perspectivve is US centric and not glo…

> Again I think this perspectivve is US centric and not global (?).

I'm not in the US or talking about the US per se.

I as a customer want 3D Secure because I don't want to deal with fraud at all but AFAIK it's not that liked among users. And I did run into issues where the 2FA setup my bank offered took a physical letter to initialize/reset and I couldn't actually buy flight tickets I quickly needed (ended up changing cards). So I can sort of see how people can get a bit annoyed as long as 3D Secure is a bit frictionful.

Online businesses would like it if it helps them avoid fraud as well. The problem is that conversion rates drop and so only few businesses implement/enforce it unless it's the law (see EU). Given how simple it is for a customer to ask for a chargeback I don't think there's a clear winner here for using 3D Secure except for acquirers and brands. Issuers don't really gain anything either given their already strong position when handling chargebacks.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Japan we are talking about - a place where many people still rely on fax machines.

cough cough glares at US federal and state agencies.

I did federal contracting for years and never saw a single one. They all digital now homie, gov cloud all up in that bitch.

State orgs wouldn't surprise me in the least tho.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#319
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then see customers complaining about the annoying extra steps. 3D Secure affects conversion rates adversely which means customers are generally happier without it and don't mind the fraud risk (as is consistent with the rest of this discussion on the thread).

There is next iteration of 3DS rolling out right now. Many countries adopted it already. It's designed, among other things, to minimize the friction for the buyers.

Yeah, you're right. I was mostly talking about the past/status quo.

Re: Japan facing credit card number shortage

#320
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what direct debits (Avtalegiro in Norwegian) are for. Works fine here. I only use my credit cards for buying things in shops or one off things online. And my credit card gets paid by direct debit.

Direct debits have all of the dangers of credit cards and then some - you have to give out a numeric identifier, and unlike a credit card that number allows pulling directly from your bank account.

How so? Avtalegiro is offered by the creditor via my bank. I click a box to allow it and I can also specify a maximum that they are allowed to take. Every time the creditor requests a payment I am notified before it is paid. I can cancel it or in some cases, such as a credit card monthly payment, alter it.
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