The Shazam electronic funds network has made a "strategic investment" in Adaptive Payments, a payment-authentication company that has developed technology that uses phone calls to help verify Internet PIN-debit transactions.
Shazam declined to give details of the investment. Dan Kramer, Shazam's senior vice president of marketing and merchant services, said Adaptive has "a strong product offering, one that would be easily accepted by consumers."
Adaptive uses what it calls a five-factor authentication process that combines cardholder information and transaction data with the PIN consumers are accustomed to using at the point of sale or at ATMs. The technology also validates a consumer's Internet protocol address and phone number used in the transaction.
To complete a transaction, consumers enter their phone number in a dedicated field on the retailer's checkout page. An automated system then calls to verify the transaction details, and users enter their card PIN using the phone to complete the transaction. A hardware-security module on Adaptive's back-end system encrypts the PIN before Adaptive sends the transaction information to a payment gateway to begin the processing cycle.
