(The Paypers) Commerzbank and securities marketplace Deutsche Boerse have completed a proof-of-concept (PoC) for a legally binding repo transaction using distributed ledger technology (DLT).
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The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) is teaming up with Overstock-owned, Barbados-based, blockchain firm Bitt to pilot a blockchain-based central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The pilot will see the issuance of a digital version of the Eastern Caribbean dollar that will be distributed and used by licensed banks and non-banks in the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU).
The digital currency, called DXCD, will be used for financial transactions between consumers and merchants, including peer-to-peer transactions, via smart devices. This means that, for example, a person in St Kitts and Nevis will be able to send DXCD from their phone to a friend in Grenada in seconds and for free.
The pilot begins this month with 12 months of development and testing, before a six month period of rollout and implementation in pilot countries.
ECCB governor Timothy N J Antoine says: "This is not an academic exercise. Not only will the digital EC Dollar be the world’s first digital legal tender currency to be issued by a central bank on blockchain but this pilot is also a live CBDC deployment with a view to an eventual phased public rollout."
The ECCB says that the pilot is part of a strategic plan to slash cash usage within the ECCU by half by 2021 and promote financial stability and economic growth.
Join this webinar from Finextra in association with OneSpan on 02 April 2019 at 15:00 UK time and hear expert speakers discuss how the emergence of robust digital identity solutions is irrevocably linked to successful customer engagement strategies and the transformation of financial institutions.
Customer identity verification during the account opening process is one of the fastest growing business requirements for financial institutions. Whether to satisfy Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering regulations in an account opening process or as evidence for electronic signature. In an interconnected world, consumer expect to manage their financial affairs digitally, seamlessly in real-time thought their channel of choice. This requires banks to embrace different strategies for each, especially where the applicant is not face-to-face.
The webinar will focus on the latest digital identification verification and authentication techniques, how they can be used across multiple channels and the role it plays in delivering services conveniently to consumers. How the emergence of sophisticated analytics, biometrics, device identity, document capture are more important than ever in today’s world.
During the webinar, we will discuss:
How identify verification and authentication techniques optimise customer user experience. The importance of identity verification to electronically signed contracts. How KYC techniques complement and enhance fraud detection processes. The benefits of deploying biometrics, device identity and documentation capture tools. How digital identity links to the overall digital transformation of businesses.Speakers include:
Conor Hickey, Head of Solution Architecture, Deaflo
The recently launched US Faster Payments Council (FPC) today announced its founding sponsors.
These sponsor-level organizations have signaled their deep commitment to promoting broad faster payments adoption and ubiquity in the United States, and their determination to get the FPC’s work off to a strong start.
“The FPC’s founding sponsors are truly committed to sharing their expertise and resources as we collectively work to accelerate widespread U.S. adoption of faster payments,” said Kevin Christensen, FPC acting executive director and interim board chair, and a senior executive with the SHAZAM Network. “We’re taking a private-sector approach to solve problems and drive ubiquity of U.S. faster payments, including end-user and provider education, security and end-user transparency.”
The FPC’s founding sponsors include the following (listed in order of commitment date):
• SHAZAM
• ICBA Bancard®
• Visa Inc.
• The Bank of New York Mellon
• North American Banking Company
• Open Payment Network
• The Clearing House
• NEACH™ — The New England ACH Association
• Ceridian
• Mastercard
• JPMorgan Chase & Co.
• Walmart
• Bankers’ Bank
• Corporate One Federal Credit Union
• The Bankers Bank
• Early Warning Services
• Target Corporation
• Goldman Sachs Bank USA
• First Data
• TD Bank
These 20 sponsor organizations are among the more than 140 members that have now joined the FPC. Organizations that qualified as founding sponsors joined the FPC by January 31, 2019 and pledged additional support to seed the work of the new organization. Founding sponsors are eligible to be elected to the initial FPC Board and serve as early influencers on the direction and focus of the FPC’s work efforts.
The FPC continues to seek new members, including financial institutions, payment network operators, technology providers, consumer and business end users, and individuals with a professional interest in improving the payment system. The organization creates safe forums for dialogue among these members, governed by strong antitrust guard rails that support innovation, inform system design and enhance cross-solution risk mitigation. As an independent, solution-agnostic organization, the FPC is in a unique position to work with industry stakeholders and tackle challenges that may be more difficult to address through bilateral cooperation alone.
Klarna, a global payment provider, announces a partnership with Canadian instant financing provider, PayBright. Klarna and PayBright are joining forces to give Klarna’s 100,000 global retailers the ability to turn on a consumer finance solution for their Canadian shoppers quickly and easily.
“PayBright is a leading provider of e-commerce and in-store point-of-sale financing in Canada, working across multiple verticals from fashion and retail to travel and home,” said Michael Rouse, Chief Commercial Officer of Klarna. “By building a relationship with a like-minded company, we can offer a comprehensive range of alternative payment options in this critical market to our entire global merchant base. Through this partnership, Klarna is now the only company to offer pay later and consumer finance services throughout North America.”
Canada is the first country to be available as part of Klarna’s initiative to help retailers go live in new countries seamlessly and accelerate their international expansion. Via Klarna’s reverse integration platform, which enables partners and other issuers such as PayBright to connect directly to Klarna, retailers will benefit as their integration will instantly be supported in all available markets.
“This is another example of how Klarna wants to help retailers grow and be successful across multiple countries,” said Michael Rouse. “Retail is increasingly competitive and we want to give our clients every opportunity to meet their goals. Klarna now offers coverage for 12 countries via our single integration and that number will continue to grow over the next year.”
“Klarna and PayBright share a mission to make in-store and online merchants successful by creating a more flexible purchase experience for shoppers,” said Wayne Pommen, President and CEO of PayBright. “We are excited to work with Klarna to give consumers financial choice at checkout and make cross-border commerce an easy and hassle-free reality for our merchant partners.”
Join Finextra, Accertify, InAuth and industry experts for our webinar on 04 April 2019 at 15:00 UK time as we discuss how financial institutions and merchants are fighting fraudulent account opening and account takeover with digital intelligence.
Two current top areas of concern for fraud risk are account opening where fraudsters are able to open an account with a real or synthetic identity, and account takeover where access is gained to an established consumer’s digital account.
Digital account openings are vital to the lifeblood of any transaction-based company. It’s critical that the door is closed on fraudsters before they can gain access to any account opening process. But even the most security conscious organisations remain vulnerable to potential fraud and financial loss as accounts are opened using false identities.
Account takeover fraud is on the rise as fraudsters bypass authentication with compromised user IDs and passwords. Once access is gained they are able to withdraw funds, make purchases and steal customer information for use at other organisations.
Join our webinar on 04 April 2019 at 15:00 UK time to hear Finextra, Accertify, InAuth and industry experts discuss:
How does device intelligence help prevent fraudulent account opening/takeover? Once identity is established, how do you protect that identity from account takeover and the consumer, and yet reduce friction? How do newer techniques such as biometrics, bot and malware protection, and behaviour analytics help against fraud attacks? What is the role of machine learning models, fraud rules analysts in preventing these scenarios?Speakers include:
Diane Joyce, Technology Owner, Post Office Identity Services Patrick Reemts, VP, Originations & Authentication, TSYS Michael Lynch, Chief Strategy Officer, InAuth Inc. Jeff Wixted, VP, Operations & Product, Accertify Inc.
In my last article I highlighted the importance for any business handling payment security data to keep it adequately protected by adhering to PCI DSS standards. The consequences for those that do not comply with the regulations could be dire; including loss of consumer and supplier trust, but also a fine from regulators if a data breach occurs. Of course, given there are 12 requirements to keep on-top of, it might seem like a mammoth task to stay complaint. Thankfully it doesn’t have to be that complex.
Here are nine key factors of control which can help guide any business in maintaining compliance via the 12 key requirements of the PCI DSS standard, as well as communicate compliance progress to the board. These are as follows:
Factor 1: Control Environment: The sustainability and effectiveness of the 12 Key Requirements depends on a healthy Control Environment. Factor 2: Control Design: Proper control operation to meet DSS security control objectives depends on sound Control Design. Factor 3: Control Risk: Without ongoing maintenance (security testing, risk management, etc.), controls can degrade over time and eventually break down. Mitigation of control failures requires integrated management of Control Risk. Factor 4: Control Robustness: Controls operate in dynamic business and ever-changing threat environments. They must be robust to resist unwanted change to remain functional and perform to specifications (configure standards, access control, system hardening, etc.). Factor 5: Control Resilience: Security controls can potentially still fail, despite adding layers of control for increased robustness, therefore control resilience with proactive discovery and quick recovery from failure is essential for effectiveness and sustainability. Factor 6: Control Lifecycle Management: To achieve all of the above it is necessary to monitor and actively manage security controls throughout each stage of their lifecycle from inception to retirement. Factor 7: Performance Management: Establishing and communicating performance standards to measure the actual performance of the control environment improves control effectiveness, and promotes predictable outcomes of your data protection and compliance activities, allowing for early identification and correction of performance deviations. Factor 8: Maturity Measurement: A control environment should never be stagnant – it must improve continuously. To do so, businesses need a roadmap, a target level of process and capability maturity to track the degree of formality and optimization of processes as indication of how close developing processes are to being complete and capable of continual improvement. Factor 9: Self-Assessment: Achieving all of the above requires in-house proficiency – resource capacity (people, processes and technology), capability (supporting processes), competency (skills, knowledge and experience) and commitment (the will to consistently adhere to compliance requirements) – in short: self-assessment proficiency.Businesses should also remember that passing PCI compliance validation doesn’t mean that systems are ‘secure’, just that there was no evidence of non-compliance during the assessment period, which is typically just a week or two. On the flip side, security systems are often tested every day. Sustaining compliance with the PCI DSS Standard is not a project, a one-off activity, but an ongoing programme. A programme that needs to adapt to the changing needs of business and new technologies that may be introduced into the business environment.
The key to a compliance processes being effective is the need to be driven from the top. Often this is hindered by the simple fact that general progress or challenges are not clearly communicated or understood by executives. By structuring the compliance process and conversations on our nine factors of control effectiveness and sustainability, executives can obtain a clearer understanding of the process involved and a clearer dialogue can be opened up to avoid unnecessary obstacles.
FinTech Company Prepaid Financial Services has today announced the completion of a deal to acquire the Physical Prepaid Card Portfolio of Barclaycard in the UK and migrate onto its own platform as of 31st January 2019.
Noel Moran, CEO at PFS said: "We had been in discussion with Barclays regarding their physical prepaid cards and looking at opportunities to work together. In January, we agreed a deal whereby PFS acquired Barclays’ portfolio and would work with Barclays to migrate clients off the existing prepaid platform and over to PFS. We are working hard to achieve a seamless migration for clients of Barclays. The deal will enable PFS to offer an enhanced service to existing and future Payroll and Corporate clients. Adding this Corporate and Payroll portfolio to our existing Corporate book further strengthens our position in the market as one of the leading payment providers for Corporate customers.”