NFC, POS, EMV, RFID. This may look like alphabet soup to some, but if you work in retail, you know what these acronyms represent – a host of technologies (some new, some not so new) in the retail space. As an increasing number of retailers experiment leveraging each of these, seamless customer experience is sure to grow – and as Joe LaRocca, NRF’s Senior Asset Protection Advisor warned, many inherent risks will follow.
In Wednesday’s LP ’12 closing keynote, LaRocca detailed what these emerging technologies mean for retail – and more importantly, what threats exist when each are implemented. Watch below as LaRocca shares his thoughts on one sliver of the equation: mobile POS and e-receipts.
4 Comments
All of these “issues” have been taken in to account, have already been corrected, and do not come up in any way. Get with the times if you want to make call outs.
Mr Larocca did a superb job of presenting the challenges of mobile POS and the certain increase in fraud. As a loss control professional he gave us much to think about as we try to educate our organizations. I also liked Larocca’s PowerPoint slide visuals. I would add that Mr Johnson’s comments were poignant about how the retail industry is expected to change due to the technology. Both presenters made the a winning session and stimulated our thinking…different from other LP seminars I have been to in the past.
CT, thank you for the comment and hope you enjoyed the show.
I agree that many retailers have taken precautions to prevent and detect the issues described during my session. However, most seasoned LP executives would tell you shrinkage, fraud and cyber intrusion precautions must always be updated as new hardware, software and polices are adopted.
My presentation was based on present day threats and future considerations. Many U.S. based retailers are considering the technology I described, or only recently rolled out the capabilities to stores.
I pasted some recent examples below. There are many, many others if you look around.
Card Skimming:
June 22, 2012 – South Hackensack man accused of running credit card skimming operation
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2012/06/south_hackensack_man_accused_of_running_credit_card_skimming_operation.html
Pin Pad Tampering:
May 23, 2012 Organized crime group blamed for PIN pad thefts from Calgary Subway restaurants
http://www.canada.com/news/calgary/Organized+crime+group+blamed+thefts+from+Calgary+Subway/6668229/story.html
Internal Fraud:
April 12, 2012 – Two brothers pleaded guilty today to wire fraud in connection with their scheme to defraud Nordstrom of more than $1.4 million in commissions and rebates.
http://www.fbi.gov/seattle/press-releases/2012/brothers-who-defrauded-nordstrom-with-online-reward-scheme-plead-guilty-to-wire-fraud
Touch-less Payment Fraud:
March 23, 2012 Millions of Barclays card users exposed to fraud
http://www.channel4.com/news/millions-of-barclays-card-users-exposed-to-fraud
Hacking:
June 10, 2012 Wawas Website Hacked, Group says it is protesting high gas prices, threatens to shut down pumps
http://www.cspnet.com/news/technology/articles/update-wawas-website-hacked
You get the picture.
I’m glad your company is buttoned up and hopefully you’re willing to share some of the best practices in the future. Crime prevention is everyone’s responsibility. Hopefully, retail executives will keep an open mind about what new threats could emerge in the coming months and years ahead.
Introducing mobile technology in the store results in sweeping changes in the customer engagement process and store operations. The impact of such a fundamental shift in store technology on the LP process can’t be overlooked, but in most cases mobile and digital technologies present an opportunity to improve the current processes and practices in place in most retail environments.
Both scenarios presented by Mr. LaRocca have mobile mitigation solutions that are superior to the manual processes in place today. The solutions require retailers to embrace mobile technology as a transformational catalyst — one in which more questions may initially arise than answers, and each answer will need to be thought through carefully to achieve the ultimate goal of a streamlined process. This is much more than a minor tweak to existing processes and retailers who apply revolutionary, rather than evolutionary, thinking and approaches will be the ones who succeed.