January 18, 2011
Retail Payments Risk Forum hosts 4th annual "Emerging Risks in Emerging Payments" conference
On November 15–16, 2010, law enforcement, regulators, and other selected payments experts gathered once again to exchange ideas, research, and business expertise at the "Emerging Risks in Emerging Payments" conference at the Atlanta Fed. The conference provided a platform for sharing retail payments knowledge and insights among payment industry participants, regulators, and law enforcement. The conference also expanded networking opportunities for industry stakeholders essential to the payments industry, all of whom have a common interest in improving the detection and mitigation of emerging risks and fraud in emerging retail payments systems.
Opening remarks were made by Patrick Barron, first vice president of the Atlanta Fed. He was followed by Richard Oliver, executive vice president and director of the Retail Payments Risk Forum. Five expert panels with representatives from law enforcement, corporations, service providers, and other stakeholders discussed a range of themes related to emerging risks in emerging payments. Each panel provided a high-level overview of the state of the retail payments environment.
The following brief summary captures some of the key themes discussed during the event. Additional presentation materials are available on the Atlanta Fed's website.
Emerging trends in retail payments
Recent technological advances have changed the way retail payments are conducted. For instance, innovations in the card space are providing better ways to combat card fraud. Countries that have adopted Europay, MasterCard, and VISA (EMV) have seen a marked reduction in skimming fraud compared with countries that use magstripe cards, including card-not-present transactions over the Internet.
The mobile payments panelists predict that consumers will eventually migrate to mobile wallets—the speed and convenience of payment both for the merchant and consumer enhance this likelihood. However, the panelists agreed that some of the challenges to mobile payment adoption in the United States include lack of standardization, merchant investment hurdles, perceived security requirements, and lack of a clear value proposition for consumers.
Emerging risks in retail payments
Innovation introduces new risk factors. Several panelists highlighted the ongoing importance of protecting consumer information as the sophistication of financial crimes continues to increase. For instance, one panelist explained that in the card space, virtual prepaid cards can be funded by a transfer from another card or by phone or Internet, often times anonymously. In some cases, illicit funds can become instantly available from ATMs in more than 200 countries, without sharing confidential or bank information, which makes it very difficult for law enforcement to trace and monitor these funds.
Another panelist discussed the risk profiles of the different person-to-person (P2P) business models. For example, while the mobile channel is emerging as a viable method for P2P payments, telecom customer data—and, to a lesser extent, e-mail addresses—have become reliable ways to identify individuals to receive messages. However, they are not 100 percent reliable public directories. Some of the key risk distribution issues in a P2P environment include unauthorized transactions, intermediary error (such as misdirected payments), and fraud.
Additionally, panelists discussed the emergence of payments in the social network realm. One panelist discussed how fraudsters use social network sites and the data they gather from those sites to commit cybercrimes such as identity theft and "clickjacking scams," which trick users into clicking on ads and other sites that divert them from safe and reputable sites. Another panelist discussed the rapidly growing new segment of social network "businesses" that leverage the payments platform but turn out to be shell or fraudulent businesses.
How to address emerging risks in new retail payments?
Fraud and risk detection and mitigation must keep pace with emerging payments trends. Advances in payments technology enable new ways to conduct retail payments but can also create new channels for criminals to exploit and commit payments crimes.
The panelists highlighted these issues and more while proffering ways for regulators, law enforcement, and others to work together towards mitigating and deterring risks and fraud in the emerging payments environment. All in attendance recognized that the challenges ahead are common to all parties involved, and information sharing along with collaborative action is imperative for achieving the goal of ensuring a safe and efficient payments system.
By Ana Cavazos-Wright, senior payments risk analyst in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed
January 18, 2011 in emerging payments, mobile payments, risk | Permalink
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February 16, 2010
Haitian crisis: Are mobile payment discussions an unexpected consequence?
The earthquake in Haiti caused massive destruction that ultimately leveled the capital city of Port-au-Prince and resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. As charitable assistance has poured in from around the world, an unexpected revelation has come to light with respect to the potential for mobile phone–enabled payments. Within a matter of days, wireless network operaters facilitated millions of dollars in donations, demonstrating how quickly people all over the world could assemble to adopt a single payment method for a specific purpose. Through the use of text messaging, or SMS (short message service), via the mobile phone, consumers could send payments to a variety of charitable organizations providing aid to Haiti.
Convenience of text messaging can drive adoption
I heard someone say recently that "convenience is like a drug for consumers." This convenience is possibly why texting is outpacing e-mail messaging as a mainstream form of communication—the ubiquity of mobile phones makes texting increasingly easier, cheaper, more convenient, and perhaps a natural vehicle for sending payment instructions. According to research released by Nielsen Mobile, the typical U.S. consumer sends and receives more SMS text messages than telephone calls. Mobile SMS is already widely used in developing countries to facilitate mobile money transfers for domestic person-to-person payments and cross-border remittances.
What if something goes wrong?
In many developing countries, mobile money transfer payments are transmitted via SMS without a bank partner to facilitate clearing and settlement. As described in an earlier post, Safaricom's M-pesa service provides mobile phone–enabled payments through text message instructions, with cash-out needs accommodated by agents, typically a village store or wireless retailer. But many of the payments are peer-to-peer in nature and funded by topping up the consumer's mobile phone bill. In the Haiti example, customers also could fund the payment by adding the value of the donation to their phone bills or by debiting a bank account.
Of course, the legal and regulatory environments in the United States differ markedly from developing markets like Kenya, where the M-pesa mobile payments service has grown so rapidly. The risk environments also differ significantly. In Kenya, a consumer faces less risk of loss in a mobile-enabled payment environment than the cash-based system that prevailed only a few years ago. U.S. consumers have many choices in payments and enjoy legal protections if service providers fail to consummate the payment transaction.
So what happens if the $20 donation instruction you sent to Haiti appears as a $200 or even a $2,000 charge on your bill? What if there is a disagreement about the error between you and your wireless carrier? What else could go wrong?
Protection for consumers
One of the growing challenges created by payment innovations is the creation of new laws and rule sets, which provide different protections depending on the payment type. This challenge is further complicated as payments converge and assume different formats along the supply chain. For example, a payment initiated via a credit card on a mobile device is subject to error resolution procedures and consumer protection standards established by the card networks. Similarly, Regulation E covers electronic transactions initiated from a bank deposit account. But if you disagree with a charge to your phone bill for a payment, it is questionable whether the error resolution provisions of Regulation E would even apply. As telecom firms become more important participants in retail payments, what laws and rule sets can consumers look to for protection when things go awry?
Of course, these issues are highly hypothetical but also very possible. Telecom firms and mobile payment service providers are filling new roles in mobile payments, forcing business models that we know today into a new paradigm. Perhaps the crisis in Haiti will serve as a catalyst for proactive thinking on risk issues so that all industry participants can work together to build a safe and trusted mobile sector of commerce.
By Cindy Merritt, assistant director of the Retail Payments Risk Forum
February 16, 2010 in collaboration, emerging payments, innovation, mobile network operator (MNO), mobile payments, telecom | Permalink
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December 28, 2009
Mobile money transfers: Benign P2P or hawala money?
Informal value transfer systems (IVTS) such as traditional trade and barter have existed since the beginning of time and still serve legitimate purposes today. While informal payments may provide benefits such as improved reliability and convenience to users over formal systems, they may also create regulatory and risk management challenges. Person-to-person (P2P) payments via the mobile phone, also known as mobile money transfers (MMT), represent an innovation with the potential for use in informal channels as nonbanks, many of which are start-up firms, extend services in a cross-border enviroment.
IVTS were defined by Nikos Passas to describe "any network or mechanism that can be used to transfer funds or value from place to place either without leaving a formal paper trail of the entire transaction or without going through regulated financial institutions." One of those systems is hawala, which has its origins in classical Islamic law and is mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the eighth century. Hawala drew interest from the U.S. government after 9/11 because payments are exchanged on the honor system without a paper trail. With this arrangement, it could be difficult to determine if a transfer of funds was for legitimate purposes.
In addition to hawala, Passas identified other important IVTS to include gift and money transfer services via Internet sites, Internet-based payments and transfers, and stored value cards, such as prepaid telephone cards, to name a few. IVTS systems and mechanisms range from basic and traditional exchanges to modern and sophisticated ones.
ENLARGE |
Passas' initial work predated the recent developments in the mobile payments channel and certainly came before the growth in mobile enabled P2P and the use of prepaid airtime for remittances, as described in an earlier edition of Portals and Rails. When P2P payments are conducted by mobile carriers in a bank-agnostic ecosystem, do they potentially represent a more sophisticated, modern-day informal payment system?
MMT: The fastest-growing mobile payment
P2P payments represent possibly the fastest form of financial transaction enabled by mobile phones, driven by the steady growth in remittance markets, the ubiquity of cell phones themselves, and the desirability for an electronic P2P payment alternative in developed countries like the United States. Research firm Gartner recently identified mobile money transfer as the first of the top 10 consumer mobile applications in 2012, made possible by developments in smart handsets like the iPhone. Separately, ABI research predicts that almost three times as many consumers worldwide will use mobile phones to conduct P2P payments than those who will use them to conduct mobile banking functions by the end of 2011.
Formal versus informal
GSMA (Global System Mobile Association), the alliance of mobile network operators, launched the Mobile Money Transfer Programme initiative to promote the mobile channel and formalize international remittances. With low barriers to entry, roaming capacity, and a growing unbanked market in developed countries, start-up firms may offer informal MMT services, including international and domestic P2P in cross-border markets to expand their customer reach and network opportunities. While informal payment systems can provide means for legal transactions, the lack of transparency could potentially provide bad actors the opportunity for money laundering and other financial crimes.
Nonbanks, like telecom firms and others, are rapidly entering the financial services arena, creating an uncertain regulatory environment as laws and regulations vary from country to country. Will mobile P2P innovation permit service offerings that are characterized as informal payments with the potential for misconduct? Will violators of money-laundering laws go undetected as stored-value mechanisms move from the plastic card to the mobile device? These questions will no doubt be the focus for regulators in many markets going forward as they attempt to understand both the operational and regulatory risks money transfer services have the potential to introduce.
By Cindy Merritt, assistant director of the Retail Payments Risk Forum
December 28, 2009 in emerging payments, innovation, mobile payments, remittances, risk, telecom | Permalink
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November 02, 2009
Payments Spotlight Podcast: WACHA's Gilmeister discusses commercial account takeovers and other emerging risks
Play (MP3 7:58)
Transcript
We invite you to listen to an interview with Mary Gilmeister, President of the Wisconsin Automated Clearinghouse Association (WACHA) and a member of the Retail Payments Risk Forum’s Advisory Group. Launched in August 2009, this is the second iteration of the Retail Payments Risk Forum’s Payments Spotlight podcast series.
In this interview, Ms. Gilmeister touches upon the following topics:
- The roles of regional payments associations like WACHA,
- thoughts on managing the emerging risk of commercial account takeovers which result in fraudulent ACH transfers,
- protecting the elderly from financial fraud,
- the role of the NACHA Risk Management Advisory Group, and
- new risk issues in the emerging payments environment.
If you have not already, we also invite you to give a listen to the first installment of Payments Spotlight, which featured a conversation with Woody Tyner, payments strategist at BB&T Bank in North Carolina.
We hope that you will not only check out this installment but also tune in on a regular basis as we feature other leading thinkers and practitioners representing a wide array of perspectives. You can listen to the Payments Spotlight podcast using any computer audio software that will play MP3 files. To subscribe to the podcast series directly, go to the Atlanta Fed podcast page, click on the "SUBSCRIBE" button next to Payments Spotlight, and follow the instructions for adding the series to your aggregator. You can also follow the series by staying tuned to Portals and Rails, where we will post information about new podcasts as they become available.
Let us know what you think!
November 2, 2009 in emerging payments, fraud, payments, risk | Permalink
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