Serial entrepreneur Bhavin Turakhia redefines card payments

The Zeta Supercard is an innovative and secure system which combines the qualities of a plastic card and an e-wallet topped up with added security features. It is the first-of-its-kind with anti-fraud security measures like geo tagging and dynamic PIN for authenticating payments

Zeta from Directi – is on a mission to make digital payments easy, inclusive and valuable for corporations, employees, and merchants everywhere in India. The products revolve around a key idea that spending and receiving money should be easy, fast, and trouble-free.

Co-founded in April 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia (CEO) and Ramki Gaddipati (CTO), Zeta currently has over 500 employees spread over 11 major cities in India including Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Nashik, Baroda, Kochi and Ahmedabad. With a user base touching 2 lakhs already and a corporate clientele comprising 600 clients, we are making strong strides towards changing perceptions around digital payments. We are ISO 27001 and 9001 certified and PCI-DSS compliant as well.

The Zeta Super Card is a Mastercard-powered physical card with robust anti-fraud security measures that lets users make payments across 11 lakh+ outlets as well as online stores. The Super Tag, is a one-tap payment solution that makes payments possible in seconds using near field communication (NFC). The Zeta app, which recently touched 100k downloads, is available for free downloads on Android, iOS and Windows devices.

SecureShield – Zeta’s definitive security standard : Security is of utmost importance to us here at Zeta. We have studied the ins and outs of security, and built our security standard in a way that addresses the limitations associated with current payment suites. Ultimately, this leads to a greater degree of safety for our users through fraud-proof transactions.

SecureShield, is a proprietary security standard and includes multiple features to ensure robust security at every stage of a transaction. Collectively, these features make payments more secure.

The company has the necessary certifications that include ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and PCI DSS v3.1.

Today, millions of people pay using cards. And, the number of card payment frauds is increasing regularly with card details and passwords being compromised often. Therefore, as a principle, users must have secure transactions all the time.

Following are some of Zeta’s state-of-the-art security features:

SuperPIN : The traditional 4-digit PINs offer protection only against trivial threats, however given the reusable nature of the PIN, they are highly prone to risk. It is hard for the user to know whether or not the card machine at a retail store or the ATM on which he is entering the PIN is tampered with.

Most devices and the software that’s running on them are vulnerable to a range of threats. Android users can easily notice that many programs can read the SMS messages on their phone. These programs can also export the OTPs in messages to a fraudster’s machine without a user’s knowledge. Also, almost all mobile apps that accept card and netbanking payments can read and store the passwords, OTPs and PINs entered by the user. And, it may appear to the user that he is entering the PIN on the bank’s payment page. It is nearly impossible for the user to know whether his password or PIN is captured and stored by the app.

To address these concerns, we built the SuperPIN technology, which is a dynamic PIN. This ensures that even if a third party has access to your PIN or lets say a CCTV camera captures it, you needn’t be worried. Each SuperPIN is valid for only 2 minutes and is refreshed for every transaction. It is also available on your phone even when you are offline, and you can safely make payments at any shop that accept cards.

LocationShield : Most payment providers allow payment transactions across all locations. If your card details and static PIN are compromised, then fraudsters could access this information to make payments at any location. To counter such possibilities, we built LocationShield, a security standard that allows transactions only from machines in the same vicinity as you are in.

With LocationShield on, you can be sure that no fraudster can transact using your card details even if you inadvertently shared them over phone or email. At the time of making the payment, Zeta’s systems cross verify the location where the card is being swiped and where the SuperPIN is generated. If there is a mismatch, the transaction will not go through. Irrespective of whether the fraudster is trying to do an e-commerce transaction or a transaction with a skimmed card on a POS terminal, the transaction will be rejected and you will be notified.

Swipe2Pay : When you’re making transactions online, you have to depend on OTPs, which are highly vulnerable. They can be stolen from your phone remotely or be viewed from the notifications tray of your smartphone without unlocking it. Such threats could be avoided with an advanced payment technology.

Swipe2Pay, our security technology, lets the user swipe on the secure dialog that is presented by Zeta on their phone and online transactions are complete. Swipe2Pay is perfectly safe, fast and convenient. However, if you prefer to use a traditional static PIN, you can still do that at a higher level of security than usual. Through the Zeta app, you can change your PIN instantly any number of times.

Additional features:

Trusted Contacts : In case you lose your phone, you need not worry about losing app information and money in your Zeta account. With Trusted Contacts feature, you can safely access your app again.

You can select three numbers from your phone contacts. Our system is intuitive and takes under 10 seconds to set this group up.

Now, if and when you do lose your phone, all you need to do is choose your Trusted Contacts for verification. Each of your chosen contacts will be sent a unique OTP. You will need any two of these three OTPs from your friends to access your Zeta account once again.

Tracking score : There’s a tracking score on the SecureShield that lets you know how secure your card is. You can set up your security features as you like and tweak them any time as per your preference. You can get your tracking score up to a 100% in a few seconds.

The company is campaigning for secure digital payments, and believes that SecureShield is one of the leading and well-accepted security standards that enables safe transactions. What’s most important to us is our commitment in making your transactions with Zeta safer, faster and more convenient.