Third party online payment security service providers are set to expand their business aggressively in China, after the central bank recently urged lenders to tread slowly on credit cards and asked them to build in adequate safeguards to make the transactions safe and fool-proof.

The government directive stems largely from the indiscriminate issue of credit cards by banks without checking the antecedents of the applicants and the ensuing surge in defaults.

The Chinese central bank also warned of the potential risks arising from overdue credit card accounts. By June 30, credit card defaults had touched 5.8 billion yuan (US$849.7 million) in the first half of the year, or 3.1 percent of the total outstanding bills, up 131.3 percent from a year earlier.

Carl Clump, chief executive of Retail Decisions, a leading global payment fraud prevention service provider, said his company intends to aggressively expand its business in China over the next few years to cater to the growing demand.

"With more and more Chinese consumers purchasing goods using the Internet, it is only natural that cases of fraud may also increase."

Clump, however, refused to reveal what kind of growth his company was expecting in China or any details on the market.

According to a report from CyberSource, an e-commerce payment management firm, global payment frauds led to revenue losses of nearly US$4 billion last year and accounted for 1.4 percent of the total online transactions.

The number of credit cards issued in China rose to 162.62 million by the end of June, up 32.9 percent from a year ago, according to the People's Bank of China.

Clump said in recent times the number of instances of the 'card-not-present fraud" in China's airline industry has gone up by 60 percent over the last six months and from 5 percent of the total transactions to 8 percent.

The fraud involves using stolen card information and personal identification numbers for online transactions.

With China forging stronger links with the outside world, and becoming a global business leader, it needs to invest more in setting up effective and foolproof online security infrastructure.

China is now one of the biggest victims of international payment frauds, he said.

Li Juan, senior manager of Visa Information Systems in China, said security concerns have hampered the growth of online payment business in China. She said 75 percent of the Chinese consumers still have security concerns and are reluctant to make online payment.

But with the government and banks promoting online transactions in a big way, it is only a matter of time before it gains equal importance with manual payments, said experts. They argue that the ease of use and convenience of making the transaction from home would reduce the physical need to carry currency.

During the first half of the year, online payment users in the country grew 45.6 percent to 52 million, according to figures from CNNIC.

Domestic research firm Analysys International said the transaction volume of China's online payment market is expected to grow by 128 percent to 538 billion yuan this year.

Zhao Guodong, founder of Chinabank Payment, a domestic third party payment firm, said his customers, mostly banks, have started expressing security concerns as their online transactions have started to increase.

He said Chinabank Payment, which recently signed a contract with Retail Decisions for fraud prevention services, would invest more money on improving the security of its services.

(China Daily September 18, 2009)