Smartphones Could Make It Easier To Pay With a Credit Card When Traveling Out Of The Country
By Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Paying with a credit card while traveling outside of the country isn't always a seamless experience, but one company says your smartphone could make it much easier.
Will it or won't it be approved? That's the question on many a tourist's and businessperson's mind.
"Everyone who travels a lot has probably been declined when they land somewhere and they're trying to use their card."
Mark Nelson is Visa's senior vice president of risk products.
"When we dig deeper into that declined data, most of these are genuine transactions and genuine consumers."
But -- how to prove it? That's where your smartphone comes in. Visa technology compares its location with the merchant where you're shopping.
"We see it's a close proximity, we let your issuing bank know this is safe, and they'll be more likely to approve the transaction."
Nelson says it uses very little data, a tenth of a megabyte per day. They're looking to card-issuing banks to add it to their mobile apps starting this summer.
