Credit Card Fraud (current state of affairs and where is it going) -> Blockchain speculations

My name is StandingDog, I currently work on an anti fraud company I co-founded that is aiming to solve credit card fraud issues around the globe by helping companies collaborate with each other. I'm writing this post to share my opinion on the Credit/Debit Card Fraud subject (hopefully it's interesting for you) and where I think things may go with the "second era of the Internet" (Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution 2016) and all this Blockchain revolution we're starting to see.

So, many of us have looked at our bank statement and not recognize a charge. We wonder "what the hell is this GIRLS4YOU thing or who spends so much money at POKERSTARSNET". This has become quite common over the past years. He have to call our bank, let them know we don't recognize a transaction, file some information, wait for their resolution and (most of the times) get our money back. Who losses the money? As you may know, banks never lose (that much), so it's the merchant who sold the product or service to a fraudster who is asked to return the money of the purchase to the original cardholder, through such cardholder's bank. Companies are forced to return the earnings of a purchase they had no clue that was being conducted with a stolen card. It's them who suffer the effects of a somewhat-failed financial system. Many times these companies are hard-working, relevant and cool merchants who are trying to make an honest living.

We have built an ecosystem of trust and protection between merchants, so they can communicate when someone has purchased something on their site with a fraudulent card, so next time someone wants to to purchase anything with such a stolen card already filed on the network, the ecosystem knows their record and can act accordingly.

Even more damaging that accepting a fraudulent payment, is declining a good one for suspected fraud. The company loses the value of the purchase, losses the Customer Lifetime Value and their Cost of Acquisition goes to the trash can. Good users most of the times will use the same one or two cards and emails to purchase stuff. So imagine that every company in the world is interconnected, sharing metadata between them to understand who's good and who's bad.

Blockchain-based currencies may solve many of these issues, since it is harderd to steal a private key than it is to steal a card or bank account. We have got many comments on how we're wasting our time and efforts on trying to solve a current issue that might dissappear as technology evolves and cryptocurrencies become mainstream, i.e. once the current financial system is completely restructured . The idea Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, etc. solving this particular issue is exciting and is something that certainly gets our hearts pumping. Although I do believe it's still a pesudo-utopian idea, since things do not suddenly flip around, specially when we talk about a hundred-years-old industry like the financial industry.

So, here's my take on what's might to happen:

a) The Financial System will adopt blockchain-based operations but banks (at least the bigger ones) will not fully disappear.
Settlement, remittances, escrow, lending and the like will operate on such technology for fast and scalable operations. I believe we need 20+ years to fully make banks aside, if this ever happens. Hopefully it does.

b) New forms of fraud and security issues will appear, hence Anti-fraud, reputation and validation systems will still be necessary.

Reputation systems have been in place almost since we started working as communities. Word-of-mouth is one of the strongest indicators of who is trusty and who's not. Just like this article explains: https://goo.gl/MIwn5e , blockchain can revolutionize how such ancient system works. My take is that things will definitely migrate into the decentralized, blockchain-based operations where credit cards are obsolete and identity is redefined, but still, people would like to know, at least on a high-level, if the entity they're conducting business is evil or not. A company that provide such type of information and still ensure a certain level of anonymity will be a winner. Waterhole.io is an example of this of company, I believe.

Our company is starting from where the financial industry and card payment systems stand as of now and moving towards new tendencies aforementioned. We're actively exploring blockchain-based solutions to our operations, just like www.everledger.io; using Machine Learning tools and working very closely with financial institutions to understand which direction this huge ship is heading to.

If you have some thoughts around this; are involved in the FinTech or Cybersecurity industry as us; are a developer with curious instinct and solid skills (we're hiring) or just want to share some thoughts around the subject (or other related one), I'll be glad to share thoughts with you. It's an exciting time to be alive, things are going to look very different in the future from what they do now so it's always fun to share our thoughts and opinions.

Looking forward to see this community grow.

PS. I'm not a native English speaker so excuse me if you read something that doesn't make sense, I probably did a direct translation from my native language.

SD.