Banking Concept: Credit / Debit Card "Region Lock" Feature

Hello All,

I myself having been the victim of a stolen credit / debit card account number. Where a fraudulent transaction took place in London UK and I live here in the State of Florida. I know the headaches this can cause having to change my credit / debit card numbers. Besides the much needed "back and forth" correspondence with my bank.

Aside from my personal experiences the black market of stolen credit / debit card account details is probably worth billions of dollars world-wide. Where a soccer mom's credit card details are stolen and it ends up in Russia via a criminal syndicate.

My concept is to prevent this vicious cycle of credit / debit card account details theft through a security feature known as the "Region Lock". Whereby an account holder of a credit / debit card logs into their bank account online. Where they can select via a global map the: continent, regions, national province, or U.S. State where they're credit / debit card is authorized for use. The physical credit / debit card itself will not have any sort of acknowledgment that this security feature is in place.

So for example I would select my authorized "Region Lock" areas to be either the State of Florida. Or I could select regions of North America or parts of my State of Florida. Such as South West Florida where my home town is located in Sarasota and selecting South Florida. Due to vacation trips I take to visit family in Miami once a year.

If my credit / debit card becomes stolen through the loss of my account details. Where it ends up in Asia lets say Hong Kong and it gets used in a retail transaction. An unauthorized security flag will go up instantly where the merchant in Hong Kong and my local bank would be alerted that my account credit / debit card have become compromised.

Such a banking security feature for credit / debit cards may also devastate the resale black market abroad. Where thieves or criminal syndicates themselves will no longer make a dishonest profit at the expense of unsuspecting individuals. Where a banks fraud insurance policy in premiums may actually go down. Due to a lower incident rate of stolen credit / debit card numbers in covering fraudulent transactions.

Yes, the Region Lock security feature may be useless in terms to physical credit / cards that are stolen locally and used locally. However nowadays these are becoming the minority of credit / debit card thefts. Where the majority of fraudulent transactions are occurring abroad for stolen account details.