BA fights fraud with chip and pin

Emily Pacey

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British Airways is one of the first airlines to install chip and pin technology on all flights

British Airways has introduced chip and pin online authorisation technology on board all flights. The airline now accepts payment for duty-free goods using a point-of-sale system already widespread in domestic retail, in which authorisation is cleared online. Inflight retail customers will be asked to input their pin numbers into handheld card processing machines instead of signing receipts.

The airline hopes that the new Clue Trader SkyPort Plus system will help to reduce credit card fraud, which is a greater risk for “offline” authorisations. BA Inflight Services retail business manager Richard Cushing said: “With all offline authorisations fraud was an ever-present risk. With the introduction of chip and pin the level of fraud is substantially reduced.”

At this year's TFWA World Exhibition airline conference Clue Trader business executive Victor Pinies told airlines that online authorisation and chip and pin technology could help them to reduce losses through credit card fraud from 3% to 0.6%.