56. Considers that the security of face-to-face card payments is generally high that and the gradual change from magnetic cards to chip cards, which should be completed rapidly, will improve the level of security even further; expresses its concern about security issues associated with other forms of card payments, and about the fact that some current European EMV-implementations may not be fully consistent, and calls for efforts to remedy this unwanted situation, and recalls that improved solutions are also needed for remote network-based card payments; calls on the Commission to collect independent data on fraud with online payments ...[+++]and to integrate in its legislative proposal appropriate anti-fraud provisions;

12. Stresses the importance of clear rules on consumer protection policies at European level; believes that further standardisation at European level is needed, in the form of a regulatory framework establishing security standards and transparency of costs for each form of electronic payment (also extending to non-banking service providers) and regulating all the actors involved in the provision of payment services as well as all intermediaries, including merchants (e.g. storage of credentials); believes that when defining standards it is necessary to take account of those systems which have brought about significant shifts towards safer payments (e.g. the CHIPPIN system for cards ...[+++]; two-factor authentication systems; e-signatures and online payments passing through e-payment services), of those systems which are more vulnerable to fraud (e.g. where consumers’ sensitive personal data are transmitted to third parties, as in online payments through overlay services, or the magnetic strip system for cards), and of innovations that could make the processes safer;

For those un-banked benefit recipients who do not even want a basic bank account available through post offices and prefer to have recourse to the old system of cash payments at the post offices, a new simplified Post Office Card account (POCA) will be offered with the only apparent difference that a magnetic stripe card will replace the previous paper-based passbooks and giro-cheques.

Credit-card crime ranges over a broad spectrum, from abusive use of stolen cards, altering the data embossed on the face of a card, altering the electronic data stored on the magnetic strip, using so-called 'white plastics' in collaboration with criminal traders to imitate the functions of a credit card, to counterfeiting complete cards.

The Commission notes with satisfaction that substantial agreement has already been reached on standards for cards using magnetic strips; it is important that the same success should be achieved in relation to the next generation of cards incorporating microprocessors.

I put them in two or three categories: one is a card with a magnetic strip that you can put anything you want on; another has some sort of chip technology that encrypts the information and allows a more secure exchange of information.