Consumers and businesses looking for more efficient and safer ways to make credit card payments can now heave a sigh of relief, as the payment company Jumio has unveiled a unique solution – Netswipe – that turns any webcam into a credit card reader.

The new Netswipe by Mountain View, California-based start-up Jumio Inc. is a patented solution that provides security and ease of use for online and mobile credit card payments by turning any webcam into a credit card reader.

Bridging the gap between the security and trust of credit card payments at the point of sale (POS), the new Netswipe solution makes online payments easier than ever before. Increasing security and ease of use for online and mobile credit card payments, it facilitates merchants to more easily and efficiently accept payments online.

Enabling online card-present-transactions, the new Netswipe solution is similar to checking out at the POS. Interested business owners can implement the company’s Netswipe service into their payment process to not only reduce fraud but also to increase sales due to a heightened user experience.

And, to complete a transaction, consumers are required to briefly hold their credit card in front of their webcam. The credit card details are recognized and verified, via secure video streaming. During this process, no snapshot image is taken and no data is stored on the computer that is used for the payment, said officials with Jumio in the release.

According to a press release, Jumio has unveiled three products for merchants, namely Netswipe Start, Netswipe Scanning and Netswipe Processing. Additional products such as a mobile solution will be released later this year.

“Jumio bridges the gap between the security and trust of credit card payments at the point of sale and the availability and convenience of modern day online transactions,” said Daniel Mattes, founder and CEO, Jumio, in a statement. “Consumers love the ease-of-use and the smooth experience associated with completing a transaction.”

According to the release, Jumio’s pre-launch negotiations attracted an impressive list of partners. Facebook (News - Alert) co-founder Eduardo Saverin previously led a Series A funding round of US$ 6.5m and will also oversee Jumio’s rollout into the Asian market.

Mattes added, “During our pilot phase, we have conducted a customer survey with a focus group that has used Netswipe. Amongst other impressive numbers, the churn rate decreased significantly from 52 percent to 21 percent.”

Jumio’s advisory board includes Zain Khan, former Google (News - Alert) executive; Mark Britto, former Amazon executive; Thomas Jungreithmeir; managing director of TJP; and Bjorn Evers, former gaming industry CEO. Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin also has a seat on the board of directors.

As reported by TMCnet, Britto was responsible for building the main payment infrastructure for Amazon. Maarten Linthorst helped develop the X25 protocol, which is used for every credit card transaction worldwide.