According to this, UK’s online platforms are considering various means by which trade with Central and Eastern Europe can be expanded - i.e "local ecommerce website aims at informing UK companies about business opportunities in Romania, while another initiative is focused on selling UK food online in Poland".

"The British Business Portal networking platform provides information on several sectors of the Romanian economy, such as business opportunities, events, requests for partnerships, know-how business management and on scope legislation."

"Executive chairman at the British Romanian Chamber of Commerce, Raymond Breden, states that the Eastern European country has potential for business with lower costs in resources and facilities, its need to develop and its size and resources. There are currently more than 4,000 UK companies operating in Romania. Trade between the two countries topped EUR 3.28 billion in 2013, which is a growth of 11.9%, as compared to 2012."

"In Poland, for example, Heart of England Fine Foods, an organization for producers, growers and processors of specialty food and drink from several UK counties, has joined forces with the UK Trade & Investment team in Warsaw and some Polish business leaders with focus on boosting the profile and sale of produce from the heart of England to Eastern Europe."

"They also launched a new ecommerce B2B website, featuring products from 41 companies across the Midlands. As of now, there are 41 companies which will have their products exhibited on the B2B website for Polish buyers, Karen Davies from HEFF tells Shropshirelive.com."

"Ian Livingston, Minister for Trade and Investment, launched two new UK Business Centres in Slovakia and Hungary in March 2014. Business centres were also open in Poland in 2013 and in Romania in late March 2014. Business centres in the Czech Republic and Slovenia are due to open shortly."

"Lord Livingston informs that UK firms have doubled trade exports to Eastern and Central European countries in the last ten years. He also states that by 2020, the main goal is doubling exports to this region and in order to achieve that, support is needed for UK firms on the ground by opening a network of business centres and increasing the number of trade missions to introduce more UK businesses to potential buyers by 2020."

According to this, multi-factor authentication (MFA) market is expected to register USD 10.75 billion by 2020.

"According to data, two-factor authentication model covers almost 90% of the market for multi-factor authentication, wherein banking and finance, travel and immigration, commercial security are the major applications."

"The report describes the various types of biometric and non-biometric technologies such as hardware and software tokens, OTP (One Time Password), and biometric recognition that are being used for different applications. The above-mentioned techniques can be combined to form two, three, four, and five-factor authentication models. Out of these models, two-factor authentication is commonly used in most of the applications. Two-factor authentication is the oldest type of MFA technique and can be seen at banks, ATMs, and at various government offices."

"The same source mentions that three, four, and five-factor authentication models are less used when compared to two-factor authentication. The three-factor authentication methods include smart card with PIN and biometric technology, smart card with two biometric technologies, PIN with two biometric technologies and three biometric authentications. On the other hand, four- and five-factor authentication includes the use of smart card and PIN with more than one type of biometric technology such as face recognition, fingerprint recognition, voice recognition, and so on. Three-factor authentication is mostly used in private access areas like bank lockers, secret data access, defense, travel and immigration. The use of four- and five-factor authentication models is restricted to high cost projects in defense, research, and government-based applications."

"Multi-factor authentication implies user and employee authentication by verifying two or more authentication techniques (Hardware token, One Time Password, Password/PIN and Biometric traits) provided by him/her. MFA has become the most important part of security due to increase in unauthorized access, frauds, border intrusion, and so on. MFA is increasingly getting deployed at all the security checkpoints in airports, commercial complex, retail malls, banking and finance, and so on. MFA provides accurate authentication and negligible margin of duplicity or error."

Recent data breaches suffered by US-based retailers have had a major impact on the operations of financial institutions.

"According to data 44% of customer accounts have been compromised. The same source points out that while the headlines continue to highlight data breaches, which involve compromised payment, banking and personal data, financial institutions must stay vigilant in combating fraud loss and maintaining customer goodwill."

"Over 15% of respondents declared that recent breaches put increased pressure on fraud operations. Another 12% indicated that they suffered a negative impact on their brand, while 22% said they felt no direct impact from breaches."

"More than 75% of respondents said they are looking at additional resources to combat fraud in their organizations. Of those, 50% stated they are looking to invest in fraud detection technology, more than 15% are investing in more training for their fraud management teams and 10% are beefing up staff with new personnel."

"The survey also reveals that when it comes to EMV technology and standards, many in the US are re-evaluating their strategies after these recent events. Regions including Canada and UK attribute decreased card fraud to the more secure chip & PIN methods employed as part of their EMV strategies, which were rolled out years ago. More than 40% of respondents indicated they are more aggressively looking at their EVM plans. Another 30% are still exploring options required to meet the 2015 liability shift, and just under 10% indicated they are already EMV compliant."

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According to this, we should pay more attention to digital currencies.

"Yves Mersch, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), has reported that digital currencies should not be ignored despite their relatively small impact on the economy."

"Yves Mersch admits that although virtual currencies do not have an impact on the general economy, they have the potential to do so in the future. He concludes that crypto-currencies cannot affect price stability or financial stability in Europe, but they may pose risks for users. User risk, he highlights, is more related to speculative investments and consumer protection, and not necessarily to payments."

According to this alternative payments methods are becoming more popular in online travel payments.

"When dealing with online payment for travel and lodging, credit and debit cards are the dominant payment methods, but the use of alternative payment methods such as e-wallets, online banking, mobile payments and Bitcoin-based crypto-currencies is expanding, according to the “Global Online Travel Payment Snapshot 2014” report."

"In terms of current trends in the online travel industry, prepayment or immediate payment takes place at the same time with the hotel booking, and this is being adopted by various industry-based merchants such as Hotels.com. Still, prepayment and reservation done with card for later payment at desk are used by merchants like Booking.com and Express.com."

"Speaking of airline companies, alternative payment methods have been adopted rapidly. For example, budget airline firm Ryanair accepts direct debits on its Germany-based online platform. Brazil-based online travel booking firm Hotelurbano accepts Boleto Bancario, the local banking payment method. Japanese air company All Nippon Airways accepts cash payment at convenience stores. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, US-based air companies, accept the delayed payment method Bill Me Later which is brand of PayPal designed for US citizens."

"Moreover, one third of the airlines already plan to enable the use of mobile payments for booking purposes in the next two years and PayPal is already accepted by an increasing number of travel booking websites."

"Online payment fraud is among the top concerns of online travel agencies and booking websites, although only nearly 1% of online travel payments is fraudulent (quite a significant percentage, given the size of the market)."