**Company:** Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Limited  
**Industry:** Financial services  
**Location:** Bahamas

# How Dynamic CVV2 slashed card-not-present fraud for a nimble bank in The Bahamas

**We are extremely happy.**  
**The reduction in card-**  
**not-present fraud within**  
**months of implementation**  
**was incredible. The**  
<sup>TM</sup>  
**CVVkey application is**  
**secure, simple, and easy-**  
**to-use.**

## CVVkey TM application is

**Heatherdawn Blake-Brown**  
Director of Card Services  
Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Limited

## Challenge

Implementation of chip card technology has reduced  
counterfeit fraud considerably, so fraudsters have moved  
to a new vulnerability: online shopping. As a result, CNP  
fraud rates have increased significantly across the industry  
in recent years. The global CNP rate is now five times higher  
than the card-present fraud rate, and CNP transactions  
comprise 83% of global fraud but only 49%  
of total sales volume.

Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Limited, an innovative bank that  
serves The Bahamas, and services entities in the Cayman  
Islands, was experiencing card-not-present (CNP) fraud  
rates far above industry averages.

Fidelity wanted to reduce its CNP rates but the cost of an  
in-house solution was challenging. However, as a nimble  
institution, Fidelity can accelerate approval processes for  
new initiatives with trusted partners, an advantage that  
helped Fidelity find an immediate and effective solution to  
its challenge.

---

## Solution

To reduce levels of CNP fraud, Fidelity implemented Visa’s Dynamic Card Verification Value 2 (dCVV2)  
service in March 2021 and completed migration of all cardholders to dCVV2 in August 2021.

Standard CVV2 is a static three-digit number printed on the back of a Visa card, which cardholders  
use during a purchase to verify that they are in possession of the card. Visa’s dCVV2 service is a techenabled version of CVV2 in which the number changes regularly, either on a special physical card with  
a display screen or via a mobile banking app. During an online purchase, the cardholder enters the  
current dynamic CVV2 value, and the VisaNet system validates the dynamic code using the dCVV2  
Authenticate service. VisaNet’s optional dCVV2 Convert service converts the dynamic CVV2 to the  
static CVV2 prior to sending the request to the issuer for approval.

The cardholder’s ability to provide the correct dCVV2 number at any point in time provides greater  
assurance that the legitimate card is being used. Not only does dCVV2 help to prevent fraudulent  
transactions, it can also help lower fraud-related costs such as card reissuance, distribution, and fraud  
investigations in the event of a data breach.

Fidelity was introduced to this solution by **Keyno**, a third-party provider of fraud-prevention  
technology that facilitates Visa’s dCVV2 service via its own CVVkey™ code system. Using the dCVV2  
Generate API from the Visa Developer Platform, Keyno is able to request the current dynamic code for  
the cardholder, and display the value on the CVVkey™ app.

The partnership with Keyno made implementation of the technology seamless and easy for Fidelity.  
Keyno was able to quickly configure CVVkey<sup>TM</sup> specifically for Fidelity and deploy it to cardholders. By  
working with Keyno, Fidelity was able to shorten the timeline for that step of the process from four  
months to one.

Once the VisaNet system was set up to perform the validation of the codes, Fidelity worked with Keyno  
to automatically enroll all of its cardholders and notify them about the new fraud-reducing technology.

## Fidelity Bank’s results

The implementation of dCVV2 allowed Fidelity to significantly reduce CNP fraud, bringing the fraud  
rates down from above industry average to a fraction of that initial rate.

<u>Fidelity CNP fraud rate</u>

| Debit portfolio |  | Credit portfolio |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Jan-Jul 2020 | .420% | Jan-Jul 2020 | .230% |
| Jan-Jul 2021 | .122% | Jan-Jul 2021 | .020% |
| Delta | -29.7bps(-70.8%) | Delta | -21.3bps(-91.3%) |

Additionally, Fidelity expects to reduce fraud research costs and plastic reissuance costs by over 90%.  
After averaging 1,000 reissued cards annually due to fraud, in 2022 so far the company has reissued  
only five. Further, Fidelity customers have expressed their appreciation that their cards are now more  
secure for online shopping.

---

**Implementation**  
**was seamless, with**  
**excellent conversion**  
**and implementation**  
**support from Keyno**  
**and Visa.**

**Heatherdawn Blake-Brown**  
Director of Card Services  
Fidelity Bank (Bahamas) Limited

## Overall dCVV2 results

The chart below shows aggregated fraud rates for all of Visa’s dCVV2  
clients and compares the difference in fraud rates when their cardholders  
used static CVV2 vs. dynamic CVV2. When dCVV2 was used, fraud rates  
were reduced significantly.

One of the leading indicators of the success of dCVV2 is how successful it is  
when the CVV2 is matched.

CVV2 matched (F44.10 = M)

|  | Static CVV2 fraud rates | Dynamic CVV2 fraud rates |
| --- | --- | --- |
| May 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Jun 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Jul 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Aug 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Sep 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Oct 2021 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Nov 2021 | 0.19% | 0.01% |
| Dec 2021 | 0.20% | 0.00% |
| Jan 2022 | 0.19% | 0.00% |
| Feb 2022* | 0.15% | 0.00% |
| Mar 2022* | 0.10% | 0.00% |

*Fraud reporting not closed for these periods.

## Learn more

For more information contact your Visa Representative.