Tide tackles fraud with simple change to payment cards – UKTN

Tide, the London-based business management fintech group, is aiming to tackle payments frauds by modifying the cards it issues to customers.

The LocalGlobe-backed firm has decided to remove printed numbers from its payment cards, in a move it describes as a first for business card providers.

As fraud increasingly becomes a concern for businesses of all sizes, most will be concerned with the numerous avenues that bad actors can take to extract cash from victims digitally.

Tide, however, has argued that eliminating printed card numbers, expiry dates and security codes instantly eliminates a simple yet potentially pervasive form of fraud from lost or stolen cards.

New Tide cards will no longer carry these numbers. While still usable with the standard chip for payments, secure information will be exclusively stored digitally in the Tide app.

Citing figures from UK Finance, Tide said that losses from ‘card-not-present fraud’ hit £399.6m in 2024, an 11% increase year-on-year and the highest figure ever recorded.

An additional £65m were supposedly lost across “related fraud types that also rely on printed card details”, including counterfeit card fraud, card ID theft and card-not-received fraud.

“Criminals have been plundering printed card details for too long, and small businesses have paid the price. By removing numbers from the reverse of our cards, we’re helping reverse the rise of online card fraud,” said George Schmidt, the UK and Europe chief executive at Tide.

“We’re proud to be the first in the UK to roll out numberless cards for business owners, and to help raise the bar for card security across the industry.”

Schmidt was appointed in March of last year as part of the company’s international expansion plans that saw it launch in Germany.

Darren Deal, senior VP of fintech, government and digital partnerships at Mastercard UK and Ireland, a key partner of Tide, commented: “At Mastercard, we’ve already committed to phasing out manual card entry across Europe by 2030. That means working with innovative partners like Tide to give British businesses safer, more convenient ways to pay and get paid.”

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