Mobile NFC – The chicken and the egg arrive together!

The full scale launch of a new mobile phone payment solution by Orange and Barclaycard, marks a sea change for electronic payments both in the UK, and a wider afield. We have seen many successful mobile NFC pilots with consumers loving the speed and convenience, but until now no commercial roll out of this technology.

In-house card processing: reducing costs and risks

I recently posted on how bringing credit card processing in house can help build a financial institution’s brand and customer loyalty. For banks with in-house processing and advanced fraud detection systems, another advantage is the ability to mitigate brand and business risk around privacy and security issues.

Sibos 2010: Regulation

The global financial industry is only days away from Sibos and at ACI we’re ready to go. The stand is arranged, the meetings have been set up and the events have been planned. We’ve also been giving some thought to the key themes that are being discussed throughout the week - regulation, rebuilding trust and recovery – and what they mean for the payments industry.

EFMA: Clarity, understanding, agreement and opportunities on Day Three

The presenters and panellists on day three of EFMA will surely have felt the pressure to deliver after the fantastic first two days of the conference, and I must say that the sessions I attended lived up to expectations.

EFMA: Innovation and Variety on Day Two

Well the confidence and optimism from Wednesday was still evident at the end of yesterday. Last year people had ideas, this year they are actually doing something about them and actively looking for opportunities, which is such a positive sign for the industry.

Understanding today’s wire transfer risks

While the rise of wire transfer and ACH (automated clearing houses) fraud is not news, the pure acceleration rate, scale and sophistication of corporate wire and ACH fraud is alarming. For example, the FBI recently took the step of issuing a cyber security advisory in response to the growth of unauthorized and fraudulent multi-million dollar wire transfers from business and government entities to overseas locations.

The Trump Card in the Customer Experience

Brett King’s Bank 2.0 comment on customer innovation (Is Customer Experience innovation too hard for UK banks?), raises some important questions about how retail banks see their customers through the lens of a bank branch. King makes a valid point that customers are not necessarily seeking branch services and would benefit from improvements to other channels including on-line and mobile banking.

EBADay 2010: How Far we have come and where we are going?

Yesterday was the first day of EBAday and, as expected, many of the sessions focused on the challenges that banks are currently facing as they integrate SEPA with their domestic payments infrastructures while they migrate from legacy payments, ultimately turning the SEPA vision into reality. EBAday is an opportunity to reflect on the progress of SEPA, the milestones we’ve reached and the challenges that still lie ahead. From that perspective, several interesting observations have been made.

The Stark Reality Behind Phishing

If ever there was doubt about the organised nature of fraud and financial crime, the recent report by the Anti Phishing Working Group says that, of the phishing attacks that took place globally in the latter half of 2009, 66 percent were from one group. It has long been known in the anti-fraud community that these groups operate in a highly organised and structured manner – I have even heard of organisational charts being compared, side by side, between a well known fraud operation and a bank: the structures were almost identical position by position from the CEO down to the call center reps. Hopefully these types of reports will make law enforcement wake up to the fact that we aren’t facing a few rogue teens and drug addicts trying to scrape together some cash; these gangs operate very efficiently and often funnel money towards other, more serious pastimes, like terrorism, drugs and weapons. Being able to arrest and convict fraudsters of more than “slap-on-the-wrist” crimes is key to stemming the tide of illicit funding that comes from the various criminal enterprises. It’s time people wakeup to the fact that there are serious linkages between all levels of organised crime and start treating them, and their intent, as a single entity.

Lack of Respect for Payments Business Exposed by SEPA

It is axiomatic that banks have traditionally had problems in measuring their payments business and the value it brings to their bottom line.

Day Three at the International Payments Summit

This year’s International Payments Summit had a clear theme running through the various debates and discussions around the event: how regulation is stifling progress….but mainly for the banks.