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Showing posts with label Future Retail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Future Retail. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 December 2016

19:33

More Secure Together This Global Shopping Season

More Secure Together This Global Shopping Season

Consumers, retailers, payment processors work together to reduce fraud and enhance security in this holiday shopping season

Thanksgiving in the United States has already come and gone, and we’ve dived headlong into the heart of shopping season. And the season doesn’t stop at the end of December; the shopping frenzy will continue – globally – through February 14 of next year. Many forecasts from research and retail organizations (see some links below) predict retail sales will rise around three percent when compared to the previous year, but the biggest gains will be made in online and mobile commerce. According to Adobe Systems, Black Friday online retail sales in the US were up 21.6 percent this year, while sales via mobile devices were up 33 percent.

More than other times of the year, fraud and security are on the minds of both consumers and the entities involved with settling the transactions, including retailers, banks and payment processors. Payment data, such as credit card or debit card numbers, can be stolen in large quantities and monetized quickly and profitably. This is primarily why financial and personal data remain a prime target for hackers. While there are existing security best practices and safeguards to protect consumers from fraud, it takes both the consumers and the settlement entities to work together to successfully reduce payment fraud.

Here are some tips for consumers on how to keep your data safe in the era of cyber shopping. Some additional tips for both in-person and online shopping experiences:

For in-person shopping, use your smart payment cards, also known as chip-and-PIN cards. These cards have been proven to reduce counterfeiting. The chip embedded in the card makes the transaction more secure by encrypting information when completing a transaction at a chip-enabled payment terminal. It has been available in most of the rest of the world and is now (finally!) available in the U.S.
When shopping online, look for reputable payment processing partners like PayPal, Authorize.Net, and for SSL certificates like Verisign, or accredited by the Better Business Bureau. Whenever you enter payment information online, there should be a lock symbol by the browser’s URL.
If you are a first-time buyer on an online store and you are not sure whether they have solid security practices, make your purchase as a guest instead of creating an account if there’s an option. This way, your personal and payment data will not be stored.
Another way to assess whether the online store has sound security practices is to see whether it has published security and privacy policies on the website. A reputable online merchant will communicate such policies publicly. It’s a good way to learn more about the company.
Keep good records – always check purchases against credit card or bank statements. Report discrepancies immediately to your bank. If you use credit cards, your liability is limited. In some cases, banks will refund the entire purchase.
As the consumers’ partners-in-anti-crime, the retailers, banks and payment processors are the other side of the coin in fighting fraud. Here are some best practices for IT departments to secure their apps and consumer data against fraud:
  • For retailers, when completing a transaction, use payment terminals from reputable vendors that are secure and support end-to-end (or point-to-point) encryption, including Ingenico, Vantiv and Heartland. End-to-end encryption means payment data is encrypted immediately when you enter your card number, and that the data remains encrypted as it is transmitted to the processing system. Other acceptable data anonymizing methods include masking and tokenization.
  • Don’t keep the data in your payment terminals or on mobile devices that accept credit cards via a dongle, or in any of the apps in your data centers if you can help it. Transmit the payment data directly to the bank or global payment processor to settle the charge. But if you have to store personal or payment data in your IT system, make sure that data is encrypted, masked or tokenized, and that the application is segmented from other applications.
  • For banks and payment processors that have to keep the payment data for settlement purposes, purge the transactions from the database as soon as you no longer need them. Unless the transactions are recurring for subscription services, get rid of payment data after the normal length of time that banks allow for processing chargebacks (in the U.S., generally 18 months). For storage, always make sure the data is anonymized and that the database is separated from other apps that are vulnerable to malware, like web apps.
  • Maintain Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI-DSS) compliance for starters, but keep updated on all security best practices. Perform constant penetration testing against the system. Bring on board reputable security assessors to check out your systems. Don’t forget to train your employees to observe security practices, as well as ensure physical offices and stores are designed to discourage insider threats.

Only together can consumers and settlement entities reduce fraud and enhance security in a meaningful way. Start now and don’t stop fighting the good fight! Happy shopping!

Source:Citrix
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Monday, 16 May 2016

08:13

G4S plans to move into operating bank branches

G4S plans to move into operating bank branches

The FTSE 250 listed company said it was now in discussion with some of the biggest banks in the UK, Netherlands, Cyprus, Greece, Belgium and Ireland over the launch of high street branches.
The move is part of G4S’s attempts to rebuild its business, which employs 620,000 staff in 110 countries. In Britain, G4S’s reputation has been tarnished by a failure to provide enough security guards at the London 2012 Olympics and for overcharging for the electronic tagging of offenders.
The idea is to provide cash handling and depositing services for customers of different lenders from the same outlet.
“We are looking to step into the space that banks want to vacate,” said Graham Levinsohn, European chief executive of G4S. “It is clear from the number of closures that banks don’t want tellers to be counting cash inside branches. It is simply uneconomic for banks to keep staffing bricks and mortar buildings but it makes sense for us.”
Banks in the UK and across Europe are retreating from the high street as they offer more services online and on mobile, triggering concerns about the impact on local communities and retailers. The pace of closures has accelerated in recent months despite political sensitivities.
The big six retail banks — Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Santander, Barclays and the Co-operative — have closed 600 branches over the past year, according to research by the BBC. The lenders say branch footfall is dropping as customers increasingly turn to mobile banking.
In total, about 3,000 branches have shut over the past decade, according to the Campaign for Community Banking Services, leaving about 8,000.
It is clear from the number of closures that banks don’t want tellers to be counting cash inside branches.
“There’s lots of pressure on banks to keep the last bank in any town open,” said Mr Levinsohn. “But banks are keen to close them because they are much more focused on the bottom line than they used to be. It’s a very competitive market.”
The UK’s banking body is aware of various mobile bank branch options being explored, according to people familiar with the situation. However, in the past banks have been cool on the idea of shared branches, as they still rely on bricks and mortar premises for marketing and sales.
G4S already provides rural banking services, called banks in a box, to remote areas in South Africa. Mr Levinsohn said he would rather provide mobile units in Europe, but that this would be negotiated with the banks involved and that high street outlets were also being considered. In the Netherlands, G4S machines and staff are already used in some bank branches.
Despite forecasts that card and contactless payments would lead to the death of cash, the decline is proving slower than expected, according to analysts.
The UK is a European leader in the use of card and online payments but 52 per cent of transactions are still in cash, according to Bank of England data published last year.
G4S believes its cash solutions business, which accounts for 14 per cent of group revenues, or 25 per cent of profits, is poised for growth.
The company has struck deals with Walmart, Center Parcs, and Crowne Plaza hotels for its new Cash 360 services — which use machines to count cash, reducing the risk of theft by cashiers.
G4S fought off bids from private equity last year for its cash solutions business, and rumours of interest in the division have resurfaced.
Banks started to outsource their cash management operations to third parties in the late 1990s when the rollout of ATMs started to expand. Companies such as G4S, Securicor and Prosecur took over the responsibility of transporting cash to ATMs, retrieving cheques and cash deposits left by customers and fixing any problems with the machines.

Source:www.ft.com 

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Wednesday, 23 December 2015

18:17

Future Retail signs bond deal with Axis Bank

Future Retail signs bond deal with Axis Bank

Future Retail, India's largest modern retailer, has signed a unique bond deal with Axis Bank, from which it raised Rs 300 crore recently. The company will reward the bank for holding the bond till maturity by paying a higher premium on the principal amount.

The company will pay a coupon of 10.10 per cent on the bonds on a quarterly basis. However, the bondholder will receive a premium on the face value of the bonds at the time of maturity, resulting in a higher payout of 10.75 per cent, said officials familiar with the deal.

Future Retail, which is refinancing debt to take advantage of falling interest rates in the country, raised the bonds in two tranches — Rs 120 crore and Rs 180 crore — with tenures of five and six years, respectively. The bonds have put and call options at the end of three years.

Future Retail declined to comment on the deal. In a response to a mail from ET, an Axis Bank spokesperson said, "As a matter of policy, we do not comment on individual client transactions/investments."

Senior bank officials who did not want to be identified said companies would prefer to enter into such transactions if they expect cash flows to improve after a few years, enabling them to pay more.

Since the bonds were raised to repay high-cost loans, they will not result in any additional debt on the books, said officials from the company who requested anonymity.
Future Retail, the operator of stores such as Big Bazaar, e-Zone and HomeTown, had outstanding debt of about Rs 4,000 crore on revenue of Rs 10,341 crore and net profit of Rs 74 crore in 2014-15.

Earlier this year, the company raised Rs 1,600 crore through a rights issue and used the proceeds to retire high-cost debt. The company has also been swapping its loans with non-convertible debentures, which are raised at rates lower than those paid on loans. Future's interest burden fell to Rs 135 crore in the quarter ended September fromRs 172 crore a year earlier and Rs 151 crore in the quarter ended June.

In May 2015, the Future Group acquired Bharti Retail in an all-stock deal, valuing the latter at Rs 500 crore.

Source:BankingUpdates
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