Listening to this new entrant to the payment space, if I understand correctly, they are proposing that we start at the beginning or in his words "From The ground up" and argue the root of the problem is the 16 digit personal account number or PAN.

Please, the Account number is only an index to an account held by an institution willing to hold someone's money, a bank account linked to a debit cards. Or it is only an index to an account offered by an institution that is willing to fund, an unsecured line of credit linked to a credit card.

EMV was designed to preserve the status of the PAN as a unique number. What it did was establish a means of assuring that the token "card", “phone”, “Fob”, “Dongle” is genuine.

CVV2, CVC2, CSS2 each one the the Payment networks names for a 3 digit value found printed on the back of the card. The Card Verification Code was designed to offer a low level of protection for Telephone Order, Mail Order and Internet based shopping. It would absolutely have been effective at protecting against fraud on the internet, if criminals attempted to use the card data stolen from Target. It would have made the data less useful if any of the hundreds of merchant systems around the globe would simply ask the consumer to find their card turn it over and type in three more numbers.

SET and 3D-Secure attempted to provide a more secure method of authenticating that the person using the unique number, when shopping on the internet, was the person it had been assigned to.

The challenge has been that the merchants are not willing to inconvenience the consumer, the Issuers are willing to live with the level of fraud and the consumer is not liable so not interested in participating in securing the transaction – “Convenience over Security”.

Show me a solution, for the physical world, which reduces fraud and is as easy to carry and use. Show me a solution for the virtual world, which reduces fraud. Make sure it is as easy to use as the card with Signature or PIN or as simple as typing in the PAN, expiry date, cardholder name, maybe CVC2 and the billing address. More importantly make sure it will work at almost every merchant especially the ones we may only visit once.

I totally get what ISIS and Google tried to do when they attempted to develop a proximity mobile payment solution. It is important to note they implemented their solutions based on the EMV contactless specification and mobile recommendation. I also appreciate what Amazon, iTunes, travel partners and others have done with their card on file solutions These work perfectly when I am a regular shopper and willing to register my means of payment with them.

In my opinion we need to stop talking about the possibility that there is another solution and focus on the solution the rest of the world, based on a global commitment, is implementing.
We need to be part of the world not different.