American Express has launched new its American Express Token Service, designed to enable its card-issuing partners, processors, acquirers and merchants to create a safer online and mobile payments environment for consumers.
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The new service will replace traditional card account numbers with unique ‘tokens’, which can then be used to complete payment transactions online, in a mobile app or in-store with a mobile Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled device.
"By using tokens, merchants and digital wallet operators will no longer need to store consumers’ sensitive payment account information in their systems," American Express said in a statement.
In addition, tokens can be assigned for use with a specific merchant, transaction type or payment device to provide further protection against fraud.
Based on the EMV Payment Tokenization Specification, American Express Token Service offers a token vault to store and map tokens to card account numbers, the ability to issue tokens, and lifecycle management services to create, suspend, resume or delete tokens.
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By GlobalDataIn addition, the service offers additional fraud and risk management services, such as authorization and payment data validation capabilities, for card-issuing financial institutions.
Currently available in the US, American Express Token Service will be launched internationally in 2015.
American Express has also developed network specifications for Host Card Emulation (HCE) to provide its card-issuing partners with additional security options and solutions for payments made with mobile NFC-enabled devices that support Android OS KitKat.
"With HCE, card issuers use a secure cloud server to store their customers’ card account details, which can be transmitted from the cloud server to an NFC-enabled mobile device and then to a Point-of-Sale terminal in a fast, secure manner," said by the company in a statement.
