For many people, the Christmas is the season for joy, connection and giving…  but, it can also bring a much less festive guest – online payment fraud. As billions in online purchases surge through online checkouts in just a few short weeks, the stakes skyrocket for everyone involved.  The holiday season doesn’t just amplify opportunity for retailers, consumers, and issuers; it magnifies risk. For retailers: more orders = more opportunities for fraudsters For most retailers, the Christmas season is a time of enormous revenue potential, and for some it is even make or break. Online sales in the 2024 holiday season alone topped US$1.2 trillion globally. That’s a staggering wave of revenue. But with so many people entering their card details online, it also provides huge opportunity for fraudsters. The numbers tell the story. In the UK, there were over 16,000 reports of online shopping fraud amounting to over £11.5 million between November 2023 and January 2024. According to The Guardian, fake clothing and high-end tech listings on social media were among the common ploys used to dupe people. Overall, fraud losses in the UK rose to £572.6 million in 2024, of which 70% were from card-not-present transactions. And in the US, one in eight Americans (13%) committed first party fraud  (when customers dispute genuine purchases or abuse return policies) during the 2024 holiday season, of which 40% was admitted to by Generation Z aged consumers. Nearly all offenders (90%) cited financial struggles as their motivation, including factors such as inflation and high credit card interest rates. The threats are multi-layered: stolen card details, chargebacks, friendly fraud, and fraudulent returns all eat into margins. And retailers must manage these risks while preserving a friction-free shopping journey. Fraud controls that are too aggressive can cause false declines and lost sales; controls that are too loose open the door to fraudsters. Either way, this delicate balance is the decider between whether holiday profits are protected or destroyed. For consumers: fraud steals more than just money The inconvenience of a compromised card is disruptive at any time of year. But during the holidays when the urgency to purchase ramps up, it could feel catastrophic. Having a blocked card and being forced to wait seven to ten days (or more) for a replacement isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an enormous stress that could mean no gifts under the tree (or at least, not the ones you planned). UK holiday fraud alone led to over £11 million in losses  in 2024. The average loss per victim in those cases was about £1,844. And the emotional toll is clear; surveys show that nearly 64% of US consumers and more than half of UK shoppers worry about being targeted by a scam while holiday shopping in 2024. For consumers, fraud doesn’t just drain bank accounts, it also drains time, energy, and most painfully, the joy of the festive season. For issuers: counting the hidden costs Behind the scenes, issuers are battling their own holiday season headaches. Every compromised card means more than lost revenue. Card replacement costs are not trivial. Issuers must cover the cost of physical card production, secure shipping, activation, sometimes courier delivery, plus the administrative cost of handling these requests. Fraud losses and chargebacks costs equate to lost revenue, reimbursement of fraudulent charges, managing and investigating disputes, and dealing with regulatory or reputational fallout. And with compromised cards comes additional operational and call centre stress. Customer service agents, fraud detection teams, and operations staff all face escalating workloads during the holiday spike, which can cause delays and mistakes that no doubt erode customer trust. And because of this, customer loyalty is at risk. A single negative experience such as a delayed replacement card, unresolved fraud, or a denied purchase can push a cardholder to switch banks. Globally, e-commerce fraud losses already reach into the tens of billions annually. For issuers, the holiday surge doesn’t just amplify the financial hit; it intensifies the risk of losing customers permanently. CPoI®: The gift that keeps on giving At the heart of all these challenges lies one vulnerability: the reliance on card-not-present transactions. And that’s why Burbank’s Card Present over Internet® (CPoI®) is so powerful. Rather than accepting that online transactions must always be card-not-present (and therefore vulnerable), CPoI® brings the high assurance security of in-store card-present taps to ecommerce. For retailers CPoI® means significantly less fraudulent orders and chargebacks, no false positives, and stronger revenue protection. For consumers CPoI® means peace of mind and uninterrupted shopping. And for issuers CPoI® means lower cost and greater loyalty. CPoI® is a simple solution with powerful impact. If we change the playing field from vulnerable card-not-present transactions to card-present, we remove the leverage fraudsters have relied on for decades. Keep the season merry The holiday surge won’t get any smaller. Online shopping will keep growing, and so will fraud attempts. What matters is how the industry responds. CPoI® offers a new path. One where retailers protect revenue, consumers shop with confidence, and issuers build loyalty instead of fighting fires. It’s a future where digital payments can be both seamless and secure, the way they should be.

Not that long ago, the idea of AI agents making purchases for humans sounded like science fiction. Booking flights, renewing subscriptions, filling shopping carts… all before we even ask. But today, this is happening faster than many realise. Autonomous agents can now browse, compare, and buy on behalf of consumers. For merchants, this is a new type of traffic – one that looks human and pays like a customer… but isn’t. Herein lies (another) new problem: how do merchants tell real intent from bot activity? Convenience vs trust The payments ecosystem has spent decades refining the customer experience to facilitate security and trust, as well as minimise friction. Cards replaced cash. Tap replaced swipe. Digital wallets are replacing cards. And soon, algorithms will replace us in the checkout process altogether. Every step forward has made buying easier. But while the in-store experience has evolved into something globally trusted, familiar, and universally safe, the online experience lags. In-store, the process is underpinned by categoric physical proof. The card is present. The customer is present. Authentication happens through something tangible: a tap and a PIN, creating a moment of confirmation that connects the person, the card, and the purchase. Online, those confirmations disappear. Card-not-present transactions rely on static data - numbers that can be copied, stored, and reused by anyone, anywhere. As a result, online payments fraud continues to grow, as do false positives . Now, with AI agents making purchases autonomously, even those fragile indicators of human presence are fading. The system can no longer distinguish between a real customer and an automated one. That’s the paradox of progress: every innovation designed to make payments easier has made trust harder to prove. Especially online. Visa’s move: Restoring trust in a bot-driven world Earlier this month, Visa announced its ‘Trusted Agent Protocol’ (TAP) – a global initiative designed to verify whether a digital agent initiating a purchase is legitimate. Put simply, TAP lets merchants and card issuers know who or what is behind a transaction. It uses cryptographic signatures and metadata to confirm that an AI agent is authorised to act on behalf of a person. It’s a significant step toward rebuilding confidence in a world where not every buyer will be human. More broadly, it reflects a growing focus across the payments industry on understanding intent , not just identity,  as automation and AI become part of the purchase process. Let’s look at this further. If you strip payments down to their core, they hinge on one question: Did the real cardholder make this transaction? This is what TAP aims to answer when a digital agent is doing the buying. It also happens to be the same question merchants face every day. Especially for high-value transactions. Let’s say a $10,000 purchase is initiated online. If the anti-fraud systems can’t determine whether it’s a bot, a fraudster, or the genuine cardholder, they’ll default to caution and decline the sale, even if it’s perfectly legitimate. This isn’t just a technical issue. It’s a visibility issue. Fraud systems see data, not people. They can measure frequency/behaviours, location, and device, but not intent. And without that signal, even honest customers can look suspicious. This is where Card Present over Internet® ( CPoI® ) comes in. Bringing physical proof to the digital world While Visa’s TAP builds trust in AI agents, CPoI® builds trust for humans by bringing the same card present security you get in-store to online transactions. With CPoI®, consumers simply tap their card against their own device and securely enter their PIN. It’s an online purchase but processed through the card present rails. The moment of physical interaction is proof of intent. No bot can replicate it. No stolen credential can fake it. For higher value transactions where risk and friction peak, this human confirmation changes everything. It gives merchants and issuers the same confidence they have at in-store checkout counters, even when the customer is purchasing remotely. Visa’s TAP and CPoI® are solving the opposite sides of the same problem. And together, they form a symbiotic relationship. TAP proves when an AI agent is authorised to purchase on behalf of a human. CPoI® proves the right human (the cardholder) is making the purchase. The combination of TAP and CPoI® closes the loop on digital trust, giving the payments ecosystem a way to verify automated and human transactions with equal confidence. Both recognise the same truth: the future of secure payments isn’t about stopping transactions. It’s about trusting the right ones. The new era of trust As AI continues to reshape how commerce happens; the payments industry needs stronger signals of trust - proof that the buyer is either an authorised agent or an authenticated human. Visa TAP brings accountability to the digital side of the equation. CPoI® brings assurance to the human side. Together, they set the stage for a future where transactions are both seamless and certain; where intent can be proven, and trust is built into every tap. Because in the next era of payments, knowing who’s buying will matter just as much as what’s being bought.

As I walked down a local high street the other day, the same one I’ve known for years, something looked off. Where once vibrant shopfronts stood, were gaps. There were ‘To Let’ signs on display instead of goods, and familiar names disappearing. Storefronts shuttered and lights off. Across the UK, and indeed globally, it is becoming increasingly likely to see shops closing their doors. The high street is shrinking as many retailers give up completely on their physical presence, opting for a digital-only footprint. But here’s the tension: the push online isn’t just about cost savings and shifting habits. It’s also about risk. Because while online sales have skyrocketed, so too have fraud attempts, false positives , and payment disputes. Retailers who close stores to cut costs often find themselves absorbing new costs in the digital world: fraud losses, chargebacks, and lost sales from declined genuine customers. And the people who feel this change most keenly aren’t the digital natives. They’re the generation for whom in-person shopping is still woven into everyday life: Baby Boomers. Why the high street is fading Retail analysts lately sound more like mourners than number crunchers. Behind every shuttered store is a story of rising rent, increased wages, ballooning energy bills, supply chain stress, and now, the rising cost  of keeping fraudsters at bay online. The numbers are stark: over 13,000+ high street shops closed in the UK in 2024, roughly 37 shops per day . And analysts predict that this year will see over 17,300 store closures , which puts 200,000 retail jobs at risk. Even icons aren’t immune. Homebase shut its remaining original stores in early 2025. And WHSmith sold its UK high street arm, keeping only its airport and station outlets. But behind these headlines is another shift: for every brick-and-mortar store that closes, transactions are pushed online where fraud levels are significantly higher than in physical retail. The domino effect hits not only towns and communities, but also the very fabric of trust between retailers and their customers. The Boomers’ dilemma If you’ve ever shopped with an older family member, you’ll know the ritual: browsing the racks, touching products, chatting to the retail assistant, asking for help. For many Boomers, this isn’t just shopping, its confidence, reassurance, and connection. In the UK, almost a third of shoppers aged 55+ prefer to shop in-store. In the US, that figure climbs to 60%.  And here’s the critical point: Baby Boomers are the wealthiest generation, with the disposable income retailers can’t afford to ignore. But when their trusted high street stores close, they’re pushed into digital channels they may not fully trust. Habits, usability concerns, and worries about online fraud all combine to create friction. The irony? The very customers with the greatest spending power are those most likely to feel excluded, inconvenienced, or wrongly declined when trying to shop online. Where online trends and Boomer habits collide Behind the scenes, retailers are doubling down on digital-first models: smaller showrooms, click-and-collect hubs, pure e-commerce platforms. But these transformations magnify the payments problem. For Boomers especially, the path from “I like that product” to “I trust this payment will be safe” can feel like crossing a chasm. Fraud warnings, extra verification steps, declined cards all increase the risk they’ll abandon their basket, or worse, lose trust altogether. In effect: Retailers see physical stores as expensive liabilities Boomers see physical stores as reliable anchors of trust, service, and safety Digital platforms offer scale and automation but open the door to fraud losses and false positives that cost retailers and frustrate customers. The question is: can you collapse that gap? Not by dragging reluctant generations into cold e-commerce, nor by reverting to the old high street model, but by building a payments bridge that restores in-store levels of trust online. Bringing the high street payments experience online That bridge is CPoI® : Card-Present over Internet®. CPoI® delivers the exact same security, authorisation confidence, and fraud protection that customers have always trusted in-store. For Baby Boomers in particular, who have grown up with the reliability of chip-and-PIN, this restores the confidence they crave when moving into digital channels. For retailers, the benefits are immediate. Fraud losses and chargebacks are dramatically reduced, taking pressure off already squeezed margins. Authorisation rates improve too, meaning genuine customers are less likely to be turned away by false positives - a costly and frustrating issue for shopper and merchant. At the same time, the trust that once lived in a physical checkout is rebuilt online, reassuring older customers that they can shop safely without second guessing every transaction. And because the experience feels natural and intuitive, retailers can protect their bottom line without adding friction to the customer journey. The future of digital commerce relies on trust When a 70-year-old loyal customer walks into their favourite store, they feel safe tapping their card. When that store closes and that same customer is asked to shop online, the stakes change. One fraudulent transaction, one declined order, one confusing security prompt, and the trust they had in the brand is gone, along with a customer who may have returned many times over. Retailers can’t afford to let that happen. Not with the most affluent generation. Not with anyone. With CPoI®, they don’t have to. By carrying the same level of security and assurance from the high street counter into the digital checkout, merchants can expect fewer losses, happier customers, and loyalty that lasts well beyond a single purchase.   The future of retail isn’t a trade-off between efficiency and trust, but a bridge between them.

Card Issuers today are fighting a battle across four fronts: False positives  that block good customers and bleed interchange Card-not-present (CNP) fraud losses can run six to ten times higher than card present Operational drag  from disputes, card reissues, and call centre costs Cardholder churn  when customers are denied You don’t see all of these on one line of the P&L, but together they erode margin every single day. Now picture a different world. Every e-commerce purchase your customers make carries the same high-assurance as a supermarket tap. Fraud pressure eases. Approvals go up. Costs shrink. Loyalty grows. Sounds too good to be true? It’s not. Card Present over Internet® (CPoI®): A win for Issuers In simple terms, Burbank’s CPoI® enables EMV grade, card present e-commerce transactions using the consumer’s own mobile device. The cardholder’s identity is proven as categorically as it is in-store, giving Issuers a level of confidence that has never been possible online. The beauty of CPoI® is that it uses the existing payments rails. No new technology, no complicated verification detours, it works with existing card networks and modern consumer off the shelf devices, making online checkout as safe and reliable as in-store payments. How Issuers benefit: four levers that move your P&L Increase approvals False positives are the quietest revenue killer. Every good transaction blocked is lost interchange today and lost revolving balances tomorrow. With CPoI®, Issuers can approve more of the right spend. Even a modest uplift compounds quickly across your book. Fraud down With fraud rates that are 6 – 10 times higher than card-present transactions, CNP keeps Issuers on the defensive. CPoI® enables card present payments and therefore categoric cardholder verification, reducing fraud losses for Issuers by 45%. Costs out Fraud is expensive beyond the write-off. It racks up call-centre time, chargeback cycles, and card reissuance. With CPoI®, disputes are significantly reduced, manual reviews are needed less, and the environment benefits with less plastic (cards). It also reduces reliance on expensive fraud tooling, built to compensate for weak signals. Loyalty in Every unnecessary decline is a dent in consumer trust. But a ‘tap to pay’ checkout is familiar, fast, and builds confidence. And this keeps the Issuer’s card top of wallet – not just today, but across the lifetime of the customer relationship. Interchange revenue: no downside One of the first questions Issuers ask is: Will CPoI® reduce interchange? In capped markets like Europe, the answer is a simple no. Roughly 95% of Issuer volumes are interchange-capped, with no CP vs CNP differential. In uncapped segments, the gains from approvals, fraud savings, and lower operational costs easily outweigh any mix effects. Indeed, CPoI® protects interchange in capped markets and grows total profit everywhere. A day in the life of an Issuer: before and after CPoI® Before Your fraud team spends morning on queues of manual reviews. A rule change tightens risk controls overnight, cutting fraud but spiking false positives. Social channels carry complaints about declined transactions. Your call centre escalates chargebacks. Product managers push back against the fraud team because conversion is down. After Those same transactions arrive with EMV-grade authentication tied to the customer’s device. Fraud losses fall without draconian controls. Approvals rise. Review queues shrink. Call volume lightens. Complaints fade. Product can focus on growth instead of firefighting. How to prove CPoI® in your portfolio You don’t need a big-bang rollout. A pilot test tells the story fast: Choose two cohorts:  one high-friction e-commerce segment, one mainstream Track baseline key metrics:  approval, false positives, fraud, chargebacks, reissuance, call minutes Run CPoI® for 60-90 days:  keep risk settings stable to isolate the effect Translate the outcomes into your P&L:  interchange from approvals, savings from fraud, euros or dollars from fewer disputes and plastics When you see the results, the case writes itself. Inclusion is an Issuer opportunity too Not all customers are comfortable purchasing online. Some avoid e-commerce altogether because typing in card numbers and dealing with one-time codes feels risky, or complicated. A checkout that looks and feels the same as a tap in-store changes that. It brings hesitant groups into digital commerce with confidence, growing spend and deepening engagement on your card. Why Burbank? We have been on the front edge of Issuer innovation for more than a decade. From the first live PIN on Mobile solution to the first cloud-based POS terminal and cloud HSM, across 1600+ patents. The thread running through is the same: making EMV-grade security practical, scalable, and profitable. CPoI® is the next step. It is not theory. It is a ready-to-deploy way for Issuers to turn online payments into safe, simple, and profitable events. The bottom line For Issuers, CPoI® is not just about reducing fraud and false positives. It’s about unlocking revenue, cutting costs, and keeping your card top-of-wallet. Fraud down. Approvals up. Costs out. Loyalty in. That is how you protect and grow your P&L in an increasingly digital world.

Strategic partnership provides UATP airline merchants with enhanced online payment processing through Burbank’s innovative CPoI ® technology; addresses need in $837b market WASHINGTON – 16 October 2025: UATP, the global network enabling organisations to simplify payment processes and expand their payment capabilities, today announced a strategic partnership with Burbank, a pioneer in next-generation payments technology behind the world's first Card Present over Internet (CPoI ® ) technology. Through this partnership, UATP will offer CPoI ®  to airline merchants to securely process card present transactions in online channels.   Online merchants face significant payment processing challenges, experiencing more than $40 billion annually  in fraud and chargebacks. Payment fraud is growing at an alarming rate of 69% per year, with chargebacks increasing by 52%. Even more costly are false positives, where legitimate transactions are incorrectly flagged as fraud, costing merchants $443 billion per year with 65% of blocked transactions being false positives.   Burbank's CPoI ® directly addresses these issues by turning every mobile phone into POS devices, significantly reducing fraud and improving authorisation rates, typically 5-10% higher  with card present than card-not-present transactions. Beyond preventing fraud, CPoI ®  creates new revenue opportunities for merchants by eliminating false positives.   "This partnership reflects UATP's commitment to working with leading payment innovators to meet the evolving needs of our Merchants" said UATP President and CEO, Ralph Kaiser . "By combining our payment processing expertise with Burbank's groundbreaking CPoI ®  technology, we are delivering a solution that meets today's market demands while creating significant cost savings and revenue opportunities for merchants.”   With CPoI ® , online shoppers simply tap their payment card against their own mobile device and securely enter their PIN to complete payment, just as they do in-store. The physical card and PIN confirm the true cardholder's identity, significantly reducing the opportunity for fraud. The transaction is then processed as a traditional card present transaction for the merchant. This approach provides customers with the highest level of protection when shopping online while making the experience as familiar and trusted as in-store payments.   The UATP-Burbank partnership, which will initially focus on airlines, will provide enormous benefits to merchants across any vertical in four key areas:    Shifts Liability: Since transactions qualify as card present, liability remains with issuers and does not shift to the merchant. Reduces Processing Costs:  Removes scheme fees, reduces chargeback and chargeback servicing costs and eliminates orchestration for CNP transactions. Minimises Fraud Costs : Reduces the need for anti-fraud AI systems, 3DS, and fraud models that are typically used with CNP payments. Lowers Total Costs and Reputational Risk : Fewer chargebacks processed, lower costs and lower reputational risk as these transactions become the trusted standard for merchants and consumers.   "Through CPoI ® , we're synchronising in-store security capabilities with digital payment systems. Our goal is to transform online commerce by drastically minimising fraud and eliminating false positive, challenges consistently hurting businesses’ revenue," stated Justin Pike , CEO of Burbank. "CPoI ®  will expand online shopping accessibility to a broader customer base, providing superior transaction protection while enhancing merchant fraud prevention standards.”   About UATP UATP  is one of the largest global and most secure closed-loop networks, simplifying payments in complex industries. We make it easy for businesses to make or accept any type of payment; open new markets, drive growth, and reduce costs for Issuers, Merchants, vendors, agents, aggregators, and more. UATP is continually innovating to connect companies to new forms of payment (AFPs), and our easy-to-use data tools, DataStream ®  and DataMine ®,  provide comprehensive account details to Issuers and Corporate Account Holders. Our team has decades of experience with the ever-changing payments landscape, and our reliable and proven technology ensures our global customers get more from every payment experience. Learn more at uatp.com . Accepted as a form of payment for corporate business travel worldwide by airlines, travel agencies, and Amtrak®; UATP accounts are issued by: Aeromexico; AERTiCKET; Air Canada (TSE: AC); Air China; Air New Zealand ( ANZFF.PK ); Air Niugini; AirPlus International a wholly owned subsidiary of SEB Kort; Akbar Travels; American Airlines (NASDAQ: AAL ); APG Airlines; APG Pay; Austrian Airlines; BCD Travel; China Eastern Airlines (NYSE: CEA ); ConnexPay; Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ); EL AL Israel Airlines; Ethiopian Airlines; Etihad Airways; Fareportal; Flight Centre Travel Group; Frontier Airlines; GOL Linhas Aereas inteligentes S.A. (NYSE: GOL  and Bovespa: GOLL4); Hahn Air; High Point Travel; Hopper; Japan Airlines (9201:JP); JetBlue Airways; LATAM Airlines; MakeMyTrip; Qantas Airways ( QUBSF.PK ); Shandong Airlines; Sichuan Airlines; Southwest Airlines; Sun Country Airlines; TUIfly GmbH; Turkish Airlines (ISE: THYAO); United Airlines (NASDAQ: UAL ); Wego; WestJet; Wings Global Travel and W2 by GO7.

Refuelling a vehicle has always been a simple process. Pull up to the pump, swipe or tap your card, fill up, and you’re on your way. No apps to download, no accounts to set up, no clunky authentication. Just pay and away.   But it’s a very different story when it comes to EV charging. The proliferation of different charging networks has created a fragmented and inconsistent experience for EV owners. And it has become, quite frankly, a bit of a nightmare.   A paradox of progress There are a number of ways EVs add value to the lives of their owners; they require less maintenance, they are cheaper to run, they offer a quieter and smoother ride, and they provide the convenience of at-home charging. Unfortunately, the challenges begin when EV owners need to charge their vehicles outside of the home and face the frustration of having to juggle multiple apps, accounts, and payment methods to perform what should be a simple task. I’ll break the challenges down: Payment fragmentation Unlike fuel pumps, which have standard tap and PIN payment terminals, EV charging stations are not standardised and come with their own apps and account set-ups. This is especially frustrating if the charging station requires an app that the EV owner does not have. In a survey conducted by consumer champion, ‘Which?’ of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle owners who have used the UK’s public charging network , a quarter found the payment methods on offer inconvenient, and 85% said they would prefer to pay by contactless bank or debit card, even though most charging points require payment through an app. “The infrastructure is dismal. It should be as easy to charge a car as it is to buy petrol. It is infinitely more complex with different systems, paying methods, limited access and non-functioning chargers.” Poor app experiences Most public EV chargers require a mobile app to initiate and pay for session. If an EV owner does not have the required app, there is additional time needed to download it and set up an account, turning what should be a quick process into a convoluted and time-consuming exercise. “One charger wanted me to use an app and would not accept just a credit card. I did not have the app and (had) low signal, so couldn’t download it.” Source: Which? Another survey of 200 EV owners conducted by Paythru in partnership with The EV Café revealed similar problems, with 87% of respondents saying they have had to download a new app at the charging point at least once in order to pay, and 80% have faced app payment problems.   More than half (56%) have had their card rejected, while 45% of drivers said they have had to phone up to make a payment, and 61% have left the charge point because of unacceptable payment options. Complexity leads to risk While these customer experience challenges are highly inconvenient, they aren’t the only issues EV owners face because as we know, when there is complexity, there is always opportunity for fraud. EV charge points have also become a playing field for scammers who use a range of methods to commit fraud. A recent article talks to the very high breach rates occurring within EV charging businesses with 82% experiencing IoT-related security incidents in the past year. Fraudsters are exploiting vulnerabilities in the interconnected EV charging ecosystem, stealing personal and payment information, physical tampering, and compromising RFID cards. But fraud can take other forms. In Australia , EV fast charging provider, Evie has had to change its payment protocols due to many drivers committing fraud to avoid paying. Evie experienced significant levels of transaction declines under its old payment protocols and was often unable to secure payment despite kilowatt hours being delivered to EV customers. “We found that while most payment declines were accidental, there was a significant proportion of declines that were intentional, with drivers committing fraud to avoid payment.” Fixing the trust gap The charging experience was meant to make EV ownership more attractive. Instead, it has become one of the biggest impediments to adoption. Drivers have lost trust in a clunky, inconsistent experience, and operators are losing revenue. These challenges are widely reported and undoubtedly pose a risk to the growth of EV ownership. So, what if payments just worked? It sounds so simple, and that’s because it really is. Why shouldn’t paying for an EV charging station be as simple as a card tap? Why does there need to be so much complexity? The short answer is, there doesn’t. With Burbank’s Card-Present over Internet® (CPoI®), EV charging can be as simple, safe, and seamless as tapping a card at the pump. In fact, it can be even more so because it eliminates the need for payments hardware altogether. With a simple scan of a QR code, CPoI® enables EV owners to securely pay by simply tapping their card against their own phone to make payment. And for EV charger operators, CPoI® means fewer declines, less fraud, and more reliable revenue. The future of EV mobility depends on trust, simplicity, and interoperability. As the sector matures, payments must evolve from an afterthought to an enabler. With innovations like CPoI®, we can make “tap to charge” as universal as “tap to pay”, paving the way for frictionless, fraud-free, and future-proof EV charging everywhere.

We are often met with scepticism when we say that consumers typically prefer a little friction in the payment process - things like tapping a card and entering a PIN. And I know this sounds counter-intuitive in an era where everything else is moving towards seamless, one-click experiences. But in payments, friction equals security. And in a world where e-commerce fraud grew 140%  in the US last year, who wouldn’t want safer transactions? Building an ecosystem of trust Mastercard’s recent eBook   The common good: Creating an ecosystem of transactional trust , makes it clear that trust isn’t built in isolation. It’s an ecosystem shared between consumers, merchants, and issuers. Each party has different needs, but they all want the same outcome: strong protection, easy transactions, and a sense of confidence that the system works for them. The research shows that 77% of consumers prioritise security over speed when shopping online, and that figure rises to 79% when using financial services. Security clearly matters most. But… add too much friction, and the balance tips, leading to what Mastercard calls experience decay . Nearly one in three consumers (28%) have abandoned an online transaction because it simply took too long. Source: The common good: Creating an ecosystem of transactional trust by Mastercard Data sharing: the currency of trust One of the strongest findings is that consumers are prepared to play their part. 77% would share more data with merchants, and 76% would share more with financial institutions, if it helped combat fraud. Issuers appear to be leading the way here: 63% share additional data on all transactions, compared to just 30% of merchants. That gap represents both a risk and an opportunity. The more data flows securely across the ecosystem, the better fraud can be prevented, and the stronger the trust loop becomes. Fraud and the erosion of trust Fraud isn’t just a financial cost; it’s also a reputational one. 92% of consumers would trust a company less, and 91% would stop using it altogether, if they experienced fraud. That is existential risk. Source: The common good: Creating an ecosystem of transactional trust by Mastercard And fraud takes many forms. Beyond cybercrime, first-party or ‘friendly’ fraud, which is where consumers dispute genuine transactions, accidentally or maliciously, is costing organisations an estimated $50 billion annually. And so, merchants and issuers are responding with more identity verification, AI-powered detection tools, and risk-based customer checks. But the reality is clear: fraud eats away at consumer confidence unless tackled head-on. The opportunity for issuers and merchants So how do you keep consumer data safe without breaking the experience? In my opinion, the answer is very simple: by shifting e-commerce transactions from card-not-present risk to card-present assurance, with CPoI® . Turn friction into assurance CPoI® enables the gold standard of EMV card-present security in digital environments. Every online payment becomes the same high-assurance event as a tap in a supermarket, with categoric proof of cardholder identity. This eliminates the need for clunky, repeated re-authentication while still delivering the confidence consumers want. Communicate security with clarity Consumers are reassured when they know their data is safe. With CPoI®, merchants and issuers can clearly demonstrate that each transaction is protected by EMV-grade validation, and not just by more steps in the checkout. That transparency builds trust and reduces abandonment. Close the data gap CPoI® creates an inherent trust signal between cardholder, merchant, and issuer. Because authentication is native to the transaction, it reduces the need for data-sharing and secondary verification tools, eliminates false positives, shrinks fraud losses and protects interchange revenue. Address fraud at the root Cybercrime, friendly fraud, false positives all stem from uncertainty about who the customer really is. CPoI® removes that uncertainty by making every online purchase card-present. That means fewer chargebacks, fewer disputes, fewer operational costs, and stronger loyalty. Why this matters now Consumers want fast, simple, and safe payments. Merchants want frictionless checkouts and higher conversion rates. Issuers want to reduce fraud, protect interchange, and retain loyalty. The common ground? Trust. When issuers and merchants invest in secure, seamless experiences and collaborate to protect consumer data, everyone wins. At Burbank, that’s where we focus: reducing fraud, protecting cardholder data, and ensuring that the next wave of digital commerce is safer, smoother, and stronger than ever.

Underage gambling and unauthorised in-app purchases made by children have become growing concerns globally. With their highly engaging experiences, online gaming platforms are incredibly popular among children, but they can also expose young users to financial risk and gambling-like behaviour, often without parents even realising it’s happening. The allure of in-app purchases Platforms like Roblox are hugely popular among children and teenagers. Players can buy Robux (virtual currency) to upgrade avatars, buy accessories, or unlock features. And purchasing Robux is easy; too easy as one parent in South Wales discovered when her 9-year-old daughter unknowingly spent over £1,000  on Roblox over three months. “Kids don’t see it as money. It is coins and a gaming app. They don’t connect that it is money youhave to pay for.” – Emma Bell (via: The Sun) While platforms like Roblox offer parental controls to manage spending and content access, these measures are often difficult to configure and easy for determined kids to bypass, especially if parents aren’t particularly tech-savvy. Youth gambling is on the rise The issue isn’t limited to in-app spending. Underage gambling is another escalating concern with increasing numbers of children and adolescents engaging in gambling activities, often through online platforms. Furthermore, the convergence of gaming and gambling is increasingly blurring lines for young users. Features such as loot boxes and in-game microtransactions have been linked to gambling behaviours. Around 17.9% of adolescents  worldwide have gambled in the last year, that’s roughly 160 million young people. A 2023 survey by the UK's Gambling Commission found that 31% of individuals aged 11–17 had engaged in some form of gambling in the previous year. A study  by the University of Pennsylvania reported that 2.9 million youths aged 14–22 have gambled with money, and nearly 580,000 engaging in online gambling. And these figures aren’t just numbers. They point to deeper societal challenges related to mental health, financial harm, and insufficient regulation. Ease of access is a common theme These are sobering challenges that are increasing in seriousness and consequence – yes, financially, but more importantly, the wellbeing of our younger generations. And there is a common theme here, which is the ease that children are able to access gambling platforms and in-app purchasing.   If we look at the user experiences across all these different platforms, there is enormous diversity in how they are accessed and the pathways to purchase. But there is one thing they all have in common, there’s a payment. And because these are online platforms, they are all subject to the challenges that come with card-not-present (CNP) payments, which we all know are inherently unsafe. Because until recently, CNP was the only way you could pay online. Bear with me here. Card-present payments, such as how we pay in-store with card and PIN, enable categoric confirmation that the cardholder is making the purchase. You have a physical card, and the PIN provides verification. When we pay online with CNP there is no physical card and no PIN, and therefore no categoric cardholder verification. This is why there is so much online payments fraud.   This lack of safeguard is also why it’s so easy for underaged children to make in-app purchases and access online gambling. If we only accepted card-present payments for things like in-app purchases and to access online gambling platforms, then this would create a significant barrier to entry for children. Because children would need access to both the card and the PIN  to make a purchase. This is especially important when we consider the types of cards children can access: Youth debit cards (age 13+) are usually non-contactless (meaning they must be swiped through a payment terminal) and designed for in-person use only. Scheme debit cards (age 16+) can be contactless and used online, though still under parental oversight. Credit cards are not issued to anyone under 18, though minors can sometimes be added as authorised users. Burbank has developed technology that can actively screen a card when tapped to ascertain a minimum age limit of the cardholder. This allows certain platforms, like gambling sites, to block purchases from underage accounts when using card-present technology. So, the critical key to all of this is enablement of card-present payments in online channels. The solution already exists There’s a way to do this, and it’s already available. It’s called CPoI®  - Card-Present over Internet. By enabling true cardholder verification in online environments, CPoI® addresses the root cause of many of these issues: It prevents children from making unauthorised purchases without an adult’s card and PIN. It allows gambling and gaming platforms to block underage transactions using Burbank's card filtering technology. It gives regulators and merchants a single, unified way to protect vulnerable users across multiple industries. While technology has moved fast, protections for our youngest users haven’t kept up. Kids today are growing up in digital environments where spending and gambling can happen with a few taps, and often without understanding the consequences. If we want to change this, we need smarter systems that build in safeguards from the start. CPoI® offers a practical, scalable solution that doesn’t just respond to the symptoms, it addresses the cause. Because protecting children should never be optional, and payment security should be for everyone. Speak to our team today how to get CPoI® .

Yes, you read the headline correctly. AI is indeed causing online merchants to lose more money than fraud. Ten times more, to be exact. What makes this statement even more unbelievable is that many of the AI systems online merchants use are designed to mitigate fraud.  To best explain, we need to look backwards… A brief history of payments, and fraud Fraud has always been an issue. As soon as some form of currency was introduced into society, people looked for ways to illegally gain a financial advantage.  It wasn’t so long ago that cash was the main currency. And it didn’t take much for clever forgers to increase the sophistication of their illegal copies so that they were readily accepted, which created a significant issue for anyone dealing in cash.  So, the banks devised an excellent workaround – cards. The reliance on cards increased exponentially as the level of technical proficiency needed to clone them was significantly higher than forging notes. However, with just a magnetic stripe and signature in the way of the fraudsters, they overcame this hurdle too.  Enter Chip and PIN.  The digital certificate in the chips means they cannot be cloned, and unless someone figures out how to read minds, the PIN cannot be stolen. And this is what makes Chip and PIN the most enduring and safest way to pay, ever.  Now, in the digital age where customer experience is key, and everything needs to be as frictionless as possible, Contactless payments entered the equation. This game-changing technology has sped up the payment process, making in-store checkouts faster and easier. In the UK, the initial limit for contactless transactions was £10, then raised to £30 and subsequently £50.  During Covid the Contactless limit was raised to £100 to support a more hygienic process. But of course, this also increased the amount that stolen cards could purchase. So, a safety limit is in place whereby a PIN is required every 3 taps or £150 – the cardholder is required to input the card and enter a PIN to safeguard against fraud.  And of course, we now also have digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay to further improve the payments process, which are purely Contactless transactions with a biometric component, such as face ID or fingerprint.   The endless cycle of fraud Einstein’s 1st Law of Thermodynamics says that “ Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another".  It’s the same with fraud – it never goes away, it just changes to another form, as evidenced in the above history.  Chip and PIN has significantly reduced the advent of fraud for in-store/in-person payments because cloning a card is impossible. And so, fraud has now mostly moved online, where payments are deemed by banks as ‘card not present’. These transactions come with much higher merchant fees because it’s so much easier to complete fraudulent transactions. And it’s a significant global issue. Let’s take a moment to look at some sobering figures: The cost of chargebacks (which is when a consumer disputes that an online purchase was made on their card and the merchant has to refund the money even though the goods have been sent) to merchants is currently $40 billion globally. The cost of false positives (which is when fraud detection software deems that an online transaction is fraudulent and blocks it, when in fact the purchaser is legitimate) is $443 billion in lost sales per year.  The average online merchant uses (and pays for) five fraud detection tools to reduce the risk of fraud. And judging by the figures above, the AI isn’t doing that good a job… or perhaps too good a job, if you see it that way. Either way, it’s stopping legitimate transactions too.  So, here’s the question. If Chip and PIN has done such a good job of combatting fraud in-store (and who ever heard of an in-store false positive?!), then why don’t we use it online? Seems like a very simple answer to a very big problem. The solution: Bringing the terminal back to the consumer, but in a new way Everyone has a phone. And there are excellent payments solutions out there that turn phones into payment terminals to help merchants accept payments anywhere – on a street, at events, at someone’s home. Literally anywhere. So, if merchant’s phones can be turned into secure payment terminals, then surely we can turn anyone’s phone into a payment terminal? The answer is, we can. Or at least, we  at Burbank, can. Because we’ve developed a way to turn consumer devices into terminals that can accept card-present payments over the Internet (CPoI®). And card-present payments make fraud very difficult in any channel – in person and  online . Here’s how it works: Burbank’s CPoI® turns the customer’s device into a payment terminal. Merchants only need a card-present agreement. At checkout, the customer taps their card against their own device and securely enters their PIN to complete payment. Just as they do in-person / in-store. These transactions use Burbank’s unique patent-pending technology and existing payment messages to offer merchants and consumers the safest way to pay online . The fascinating thing about all this, is that while technology can (and does) improve so many aspects of our lives by making things more accessible, faster, and easier, sometimes it also makes things more complex, harder, and in the case of payments, riskier.  The irony is not lost on me that the solution to 100% eliminating false positives and significantly reducing chargebacks is to go back a step and use technology that has been around for twenty years – the trusty, proven, familiar, and universal Chip and PIN. Often the pendulum swings too far in one direction and has to right itself to get the balance back in order. And that’s exactly where we’ve landed with Burbank’s CPoI®. By bringing the terminal to the customer in any channel, we’ve enabled the same, safe, simple, and secure payment process for anyone, anywhere.   And the even better news is that it’s ready to go! If you’re interested in hearing more about CPoI®, reach out to the Burbank team .

Any merchant who sells online knows about payments fraud and chargebacks. This is a significant global issue costing over $40 billion a year and is only possible because the way we pay online isn’t bulletproof.    In-store, we pay with a physical card and, depending on the size of transaction – a PIN. Card and PIN has been around for a couple of decades and has proven - without a shadow of doubt - to be the safest way to pay. No matter the sophistication of a fraudster, they cannot read minds to obtain someone’s PIN.   Online however, there is no PIN. And there is no physical card. There’s only the information contained on the card, which anybody can enter. There is no categoric way to prove that the person entering the card details online is in fact the card holder. And this is why there are $40 billion in fraudulent online transactions taking place every year.   To combat this issue, the average online retailer uses up to five AI systems to analyse a range of data to assess the probability of each transaction being fraudulent. The AI looks at things like:   location of the device the customer is using  the purchase history of the buyer, for example if the buyer has already purchased a similar item recently  whether the item being purchased is in line with the buyer’s normal purchase profile  volume and frequency  and so on ….  The payment process looks something like this:  If the AI deems that the transaction is likely to be fraudulent, it will not allow the sale to proceed. And the merchant will receive a comprehensive report detailing all the ‘fraudulent’ transactions that have been stopped.     You might wonder why I say ‘fraudulent’ .  That’s because there’s a very high chance that the majority of the transactions AI deems as fraudulent (and therefore blocks), are not fraudulent at all. This is called a false positive.       Now here’s the big question – how would a merchant know how many of the transactions the AI is stopping are in fact legitimate? The short answer is, they don’t know. In fact, I would say most merchants have no idea they are missing out on a staggeringly high volume of legitimate transactions that have been deemed as fraudulent. How do I know this? Well, a recent article by Mastercard   reports that false positives are responsible for $443 billion in lost revenue each year.  This is more than 10 times the cost of chargebacks Now, while lost revenue is a substantial cost, there are indeed other problems that false positives bring:  Diminished customer relationships: There’s nothing like being declined a transaction to erode the trust and goodwill of a legitimate customer.  Reputational damage: Word of mouth spreads quickly and no doubt any customer who has had a transaction declined is going to talk about it.   Time and resources: Time spent manually reviewing transactions that have been deemed fraudulent. The greater the number of transactions deemed fraudulent, the more time and resource required to analyse the information. Not to mention the significant time spent using that data to make decisions.   Overcoming the false positives challenge A quick internet search will give you resource upon resource on how to combat false positives, and there will be a myriad of (time consuming) recommendations to minimise the risk and impact to a merchant’s business. But these steps and measures all work within the current landscape. That is, they don’t get to the source of the issue, which as I talked about right at the beginning of this article, is the fact that the way we pay online, is fallible.   I think you’d be hard pressed in your internet search to find a false positives workaround that actually addresses the root cause of the problem. The answer, of course, is not to throw more brain power or fraud combatting AI at it. Surely it is to pay online as we pay instore.  Quite simply, to make card present payments possible over the internet. Reliable and trusted Tap and PIN.  The good news is that this is already possible, with Burbank’s groundbreaking technology and it’s called CPoI ® , (Card Present over Internet).     CPoI® turns consumer devices into the merchant terminal so they can facilitate card-present payments over the internet. During the checkout process the customer simply taps their card against their own device, and securely enters their PIN, creating a card present transaction.  This offers a range of benefits including liability shift (away from the merchant), lower processing fees, and a significantly easier customer experience. But the best part, is that there are zero false positives with CPoI®, which in turn significantly increases merchant revenue.  And therefore, less reliance on fraud detecting AI systems.  Let’s face it. Online payments were ripe for disruption. Merchants cannot keep increasing tools and technology for combatting fraud, nor can they continue to wear the cost of false positives. It simply is not sustainable. And now with CPoI®, they don’t have to.       If you’re interested in hearing more or seeing a demo of CPoI®, reach out   to the Burbank team.

Dynamic (or surge) pricing is the automated adjustment of prices according to fluctuations in demand. Typically, the price is increased as demand goes up. Dynamic pricing has been the norm in industries such as travel, accommodation, and ride sharing for some time, and more recently has become a key revenue optimisation tool in sectors such e-commerce, energy, and entertainment.   If you’ve been following my latest articles , you’ll know just how big the global challenge of false positives  has become. And, how false positives are only going to get worse as the use of fraud mitigation AI systems become more deeply integrated into the online payments experience.  So, what does dynamic pricing and false positive have to do with each other? In short, they are the recipe for an absolute disaster of a customer experience. I’ll use an example of buying air travel to explain… False positives are a CX nightmare for the travel sector Booking air travel online can take hours. Searching for flights across multiple booking platforms, comparing fares, aligning times and dates with accommodation - it’s not a 5-minute process. In fact, according to TravelPerk , the average traveller spends over 5-hours consuming online travel content to seek inspiration and plan their trip.   Just imagine you have spent hours online creating the perfect itinerary. All your flights are in your cart, you have the perfect dates, you’re happy with the fare, and you’re all set to pay and confirm your trip. You get to the checkout, enter your card details, and the booking platform rejects your payment. And not because you have insufficient funds – it’s been rejected because the AI the booking platform uses isn’t certain enough that it’s actually you making the booking.  Now, in this scenario, you have two choices – you can get on the phone or a chat bot, wait for some untold length of time to speak to a human and work through the payment. Or, you can go to another booking platform, complete your search and find the flights all over again, and see if they’ll accept your money.  I would hedge my bets that most people would take option two. Now heavily invested in this process, most people just want to get their holiday booked. The issue here is that the person already has their flights in a cart with another booking platform. The airline(s) know this – but what they don’t know is that the same person is now booking yet another itinerary. So, it looks like a surge in demand for these flights. And of course, the cost of the fares is going to increase. The would-be traveller is now having to pay MORE for the same itinerary they just tried, and failed, to book. Through no fault of their own.  Neither scenario is a positive experience. Hours wasted. Much frustration. And undoubtedly, you’re going to tell everyone you know what a terrible experience you had. And all because the AI incorrectly deduced that this was a fraudulent transaction, when in fact it was not. Sizing the problem I’ll go out on a limb here and say that fraud combatting AI could be more of a hindrance than a help in this type of scenario. We know that false positives are caused by AI incorrectly identifying a legitimate transaction as fraudulent, and that this is ten times more costly than online payments fraud, not to mention the significant reputational damage this would cause for the booking platform. With around 80% of consumers booking their travel online and a global travel sector worth $667.55 billion in 2023, this is not a small issue.   The solution is in the way we pay Having just written a page or so on a pretty big problem, I am happy to say that there is a solution to this. And it’s brilliantly simple. Change the way we pay online.  Fraud, false positives, and the terrible customer experience scenario I just outlined could all be solved or significantly minimised if we made online payments more failsafe. I’ll break it down: Online payments are ‘card-not-present’ transactions. That is, there is no categoric way to confirm the person typing in the card details is the card holder. Fraud combatting AI only exists because the rate of card-not-present fraud is increasing exponentially. False positives only exist because the fraud combatting AI often mislabels legitimate transactions. You know where none of these problems exist? In-store, where payments by card are called ‘card present’ because there is  a categoric way to prove the person presenting the card is the cardholder. It’s called a PIN.  So, if we can make online payments card-present payments by having the consumer enter their PIN as part of the online payment process, then we have no need for fraud combatting AI, which means there will be no false positives, far less fraud, and the terrible CX scenario becomes a thing of the past.  Yes, you are right in thinking this sounds too simple. Where’s the catch?  The short answer is that there is no catch outside of having the technology to enable card present payments over the internet. And until recently, it didn’t exist. But it does now. And it’s ready to go.   Card Present over Internet (CPoI®) Burbank’s CPoI® enables tap and PIN payments over the internet using the consumer’s device. The process is fast, simple, and secure. Tap and PIN is the globally familiar, simple, and universally trusted way to pay. But better yet, there are zero false positives, less chargebacks, lower processing fees, and simpler payments infrastructure. It is, simply, the best way to pay online.   If you’re interested in talking to us more about CPoI® and how it can revolutionise your online payments process, reach out  to the Burbank team today.

When I talk about Burbank’s CPoI ® , one of the questions I am sometimes asked, is Will consumers tap their cards on their phones?     If you think about CPoI® with respect to any new technology, of course there will be a period of settling in; where the innovators and early adopters jump all over it, the more cautious folks watch for a bit before they get on board, and the laggards bring up the rear. The thing that will speed this process up, however, is that the process of CPoI® (Tap and PIN) is not ‘new’. Only the channel is new. Contactless payments have been around since the early 2000s and consumers are as familiar and comfortable with paying this way as they are breathing. In fact, most consumers prefer contactless for its speed and convenience. And even more, they prefer making contactless payments using their mobile phone . So, it’s not a stretch too far to think that if consumers are already au fait with contactless and using their phones to make payments, then the next logical step is using their own device as a payment terminal – tapping their card against their phone.    Don’t just take my word for it, though. Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer and innovator of the 1-click checkout also thinks so because it has just started using Visa’s Tap to Pay solution. Now, the team at Amazon would not mess with their incredibly good checkout experience if they thought consumers wouldn’t be ok with it.   But if that’s not enough to satisfy you, let’s go a little deeper into why I think consumers will be happy to tap their phones.  We are more attached to our phones than pretty much anything else The use of smartphones today is virtually limitless – banking, personal assistants, music players, TV and movie hubs, fitness programmes …. Phones can perform an ECG, take temperature, measure atmospheric pressure, navigate anywhere in the world, calculate, suggest, photograph, purchase ….    We are comfortable accessing our banking information on our phones. We are comfortable having private and personal conversations using our phones. We are comfortable storing and sharing our photographs on our phones. We are comfortable loading digital versions of our payment cards onto our phones and making payments with them. All the things in our lives that we want to keep safe and private, we do on our phones.       What I’m getting at here, is that there is an immense amount of trust placed in these devices that we have within arm’s reach almost 100% of the time.  We live in a world of hackers and viruses In December 2013, Target experienced a significant data breach of the credit card details of around 70 million customers. This severely impacted its reputation and the trust customers had. This story isn’t unique. There are nefarious people all around the world constantly attempting to find system vulnerabilities to access credit card information for illegal gains. And these stories make the headlines, which is why there is a tangible sense of unease among consumers when providing card numbers online. Particularly with older generations who did not grow up with the internet and are incredibly wary of technology.    And so, there’s a dichotomy between the growing desire to shop online and the fear of providing credit card details, which underscores the conflict between consumers' pursuit of convenience and their concerns over digital security.  In 2020 Mastercard published a global study about ‘Credential on File’, which looked at the willingness of consumers to have their credit card details stored by online merchants, as well as their concerns – of which 72% agreed or strongly agreed they are concerned about someone stealing their saved card details. One could safely assume that this sentiment has increased as the rate of online payments fraud has accelerated since the report was written.    1 + 1 + 1 = CPoI® If you put all these factors together, you get a pretty compelling case for CPoI® adoption: Consumers love and trust contactless payments Consumers love and trust their phones Consumers have concerns about entering their payment card details online amid a growing landscape of online fraud Overlay these factors with the way people expect to move through the world these days – quickly and seamlessly, and you have the perfect storm for CPoI® – an enabler of the safest and fastest way to pay online, using a process we already know and love, on our own devices.   In my opinion, you don’t get much better than that.    So, if you’re nodding your head to all this and thinking you need to get CPoI® into your online payments experience, perhaps it’s time to give the team at Burbank a shout . We’ll be more than happy to show you a demo of CPoI® in action so you can see for yourself how quick, easy, and safe online payments can be.