Kick off for ScramCard EMV revolt
Aspiring fintech disruptors need early stage investors, and ScramCard - linked to a former ANZ chief security officer - has found someone.Stewart Milne, chairman of Aberdeen based Stewart Milne Group and chairman of Aberdeen Football Club, is the funder.Simon Hewitt is the brains behind ScramCard, a Hong Kong firm having a go in "secure payments and identity protection solutions."The LinkedIn profile for Hewitt, the startup's CEO and founder, has him as global head of information security for ANZ from 1999 to 2002 and then chief security officer for Westpac from 2003 to 2005, as well as holding roles at Juniper Networks and Trustpay Secure.ScramCard is one of three associated firms involving Hewitt. The aim is to displace "less secure contactless and Chip and PIN card payment methods," Hewitt wrote in a media release.And in a boilerplate statement, he wrote: "As payment fraud and identify theft grows rapidly, banks and business can no longer afford to accept 'acceptable losses'."Banks need a secure solution, but past attempts have failed by being too expensive to implement or too difficult to use."Hewitt said ScramCard was "incorporating multi-factor security protection into a payment card, that is affordable to rollout and easy to use."Partners listed include MasterCard, payment card supplier Gemalto and software shop Alcineo.ScramCard also has "banks, prestige brand partners and businesses internationally" on its partner shopping list.