The government shored up its defenses against Web-based purchasing fraud yesterday after it introduced an online payment system which it believes will help reduce Internet theft.
Online theft usually happens when hackers intrude into a computerized payment network and steal customers' identity
information.
It could also result from abuse by merchants who have control over the identity verification network, George Wei (魏志強), manager of the e-commerce resource center at the Institute for Information Industry, told a press conference yesterday.
To close this loophole, the Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday launched an advanced online payment system that enables customers to submit their data directly to banks and provides online merchants with delivery information only.
"The new system is expected to largely reduce online fraud since there will be only two parties processing consumers' personal information," Wei said.
So far 720 online stores, or a quarter of the existing virtual shops in Taiwan, have signed up for the new payment system.
The system was jointly created by Hua Nan Commercial Bank (
To encourage more online stores to use the new system, the ministry is planning to invite consumers to sign up for a trial period. The results of the test run will be announced on Nov. 11.
However, officials warned consumers to be aware that risks still exist.
Even though consumers sometimes divulge their personal and authentication information themselves, banks and payment-processing companies should enhance their risk-control management, said Nissun Lee (李尚諭), an assistant officer in Hua Nan Bank's consumer credit card
department.
"Theft may come from company staff who are in charge of handling this business," Lee warned.
RSS