Dubai - MENA Herald: Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the region, has become the first bank globally to sign up to Visa’s Mobile Location Confirmation service, a solution designed by Visa to reduce unnecessary purchase declines often triggered when consumers travel outside of their home area.
The Visa Mobile Location Confirmation service (MLC) uses mobile geo-location data to match the location of transactions with the location of the customer’s mobile device. The solution will enable Emirates NBD to more confidently approve transactions when the locations match, thus offering the bank’s cardholders enhanced convenience and security. Overall, the service is expected to significantly improve authorisation rates of cross-border transactions, thereby improving the experience for cardholders and merchants.
Emirates NBD’s Visa cardholders will have the choice to opt-in to the service by downloading the Emirates NBD mobile app onto their smartphone. Cardholders who opt-in to the service will receive the benefit of the service when travelling by ensuring their phone is periodically connected to a cellular or Wi-Fi network. Cardholders can deactivate the service at any time. The geo-location data provided through the mobile banking app will be used for the intended purpose of fraud risk management only.
Commenting on the new service, Suvo Sarkar, Senior Executive Vice President & Group Head – Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Emirates NBD, said: “At Emirates NBD, we work continuously with our key partners to leverage best practice in enhancing customer experience on payment cards. Today, with increasing international mobility providing a seamless payments experience to our customers is key. By pioneering with Visa to be the first bank to implement the Mobile Location Confirmation Service, we hope to give our customers increased confidence in using their cards when travelling overseas.”
“Security remains one of our top priorities at Visa, and we want our transactions to be secure, convenient, and seamless, wherever our cardholders are in the world,” says Ihab Ayoub, General Manager at Visa MENA. “This service is especially relevant to the regional market. As we’ve discovered in our Visa Global Travel Intentions Study, 81% of people surveyed in the MENA region and 95% of UAE travellers plan to travel for leisure in the next year. The country’s large expatriate population also contributes to the high volume of international transactions.”
Visa’s MLC service helps curb unnecessary transaction declines, which can mean lost sales for retailers, additional customer service costs for financial institutions and, ultimately, frustration for the cardholder if unable to make a purchase when travelling.
“The main goal of Visa’s Mobile Location Confirmation service is to provide an added layer of security to cross-border transactions or when cardholders are travelling, which benefits everyone in the payments ecosystem. With more precise fraud monitoring, we create a better payment experience for travellers, support merchants, and reduce unnecessary operational costs for financial institutions,” adds Ayoub.
