This lack of action may be in part due to continued low awareness of the types of scams fraudsters use. Payments fraud can come in many guises such as invoice and mandate fraud, as well as CEO fraud when a fraudster poses as a senior decision-maker within the business and emails employees to transfer money to a particular account. Unfortunately, a quarter (26%) of UK businesses are still unaware of these types of scam, with half (53%) saying the biggest barrier to protecting their business against fraud is not knowing enough about how fraudsters are able to attack.

Fraud can have a devastating impact on companies large and small. Almost four in ten (37%) business owners or MDs who have either been a victim of payment fraud, or know a business who has been, report that thousands of pounds were lost as a result. One in ten (10%) even contemplated closing their business.

With fraud costing the UK hundreds of millions of pounds each year1, businesses are calling for more support. 82% want the banks and government to do more to protect the business community.

In the UK, the industry is already working hard to support businesses and combat payments fraud with new technology solutions being developed to tackle it. For example, the Vocalink Services Corporate Fraud Insights solution flags suspected fraudulent transactions for businesses early on by applying advanced analytics and behavioural rules to payments data. Live with NatWest, it helped to prevent £7 million in losses in just the first 12 months.

However, the next step is better enable the financial institutions to repatriate stolen funds to the victims of fraud and scams. Unfortunately, under current law once funds have been moved to an alleged scammer, the customer no longer has legal title to them. This generally means a court order is needed to return the funds, so the finance industry is calling on the government and regulators to work with them to resolve this.
David Rich, Executive Vice President, Vocalink Services, commented:
“Payments fraud costs the UK hundreds of millions of pounds each year, and our report shows a widespread fear among UK businesses that fraudsters are now one step ahead of them. Yet, at the same time, there seems to be a worrying lack of understanding of the importance of protecting the business against payments fraud.

“Fraudsters use highly sophisticated methods to trick their victims into sending money in good faith to an illicit account. Our Corporate Fraud Insights solution can help banks work with their business customers to investigate risky transactions early on, but we’d also like to see the government and regulators make it much easier for victims to get their stolen money back. We also encourage businesses to better protect themselves, for example by double-checking invoices, educating their teams, or putting in place additional checks and processes before payments are submitted.”
Katy Worobec, Managing Director of Economic Crime at UK Finance, commented:

"This report shows the devastating effect that fraud is having on UK businesses. With criminals becoming ever more inventive when it comes to scamming money from companies, it's imperative the financial services sector continues to work together to prevent existing and emerging types of fraud. The industry is constantly investing in advanced security systems to protect customers, and successfully prevents £2 in every £3 of attempted unauthorised fraud. The development and deployment of innovative technological solutions are a key part of this fight.

"As the industry continually improves its response to fraud, it is important that other sectors play their part by securing customers' data. Businesses need to take additional steps to better protect themselves from falling victim to scammers. At the same time we are supporting law enforcement in disrupting criminals and assisting the government in improving intelligence sharing, both of which are crucial in tackling fraud."

Vocalink has also produced some advice on steps businesses can take to help protect themselves:
1. Be vigilant - make business fraud the business of everyone, not just the accounting teams. Train client-handling or account-facing teams about the risks & implications of business fraud, and how to identify the signs.
2. Authenticate - verify any requests from the MD, CEO or board through a tiered system where emails and telephone conversations requesting movement of monies are verified by a second contact.
3. Introduce checks - instigate checking of communications amongst finance and account-handling teams such as email addresses, use of English, and written mistakes in the email. Encourage a system whereby suspect emails are checked by a second team member.
4. Protect - anti-virus software should be kept up to date, and computer systems must be secure. This is not an additional cost but an essential part of day-to-day business practice.
5. Be alert - pay special attention to any request from suppliers or clients for payment details to be changed, especially via email or fax. Fraudsters will often use social engineering to trick staff into updating details. Employ a secondary validation process by calling a known number/contact at the supplier to verify the request is legitimate.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for community banks to expand their suite of card services to meet the diverse payment preferences of their cardholders with limited cost and risk exposure,” ICBA Bancard President and CEO Tina Giorgio said. “We’re excited to partner with Urban FT, a leader and trusted provider in this space, as we bring innovative solutions to market that offer greater choice and convenience without sacrificing the standard of service for which community banks are known.”

This new alliance supports an array of Mastercard consumer and commercial prepaid cards, and it features popular value-adds, including fuel rewards, cell phone insurance, and wi-fi access. Community banks will also be able to take advantage of Urban FT’s remote deposit capture offering and its award-winning digital banking app, which can be white-labeled.

St. Paul, Minn.-based Sunrise Banks, a $1.1 billion-asset community bank, will serve as the correspondent bank for the program and will handle card servicing and support as well as related compliance requirements on behalf of ICBA Bancard clients.

“We know that developing innovative programs supported by the best technologies drives interest in these payment offerings,” said Urban FT Chief Growth Officer Hunter Wolfe. “Urban FT anticipates a long and collaborative partnership with ICBA Bancard as we work to empower community banks with new payment solutions and digital experiences that allow them to retain their role as the go-to source for their customers’ payment needs.”

The new solution applies intelligent transaction tools, including a robust rules engine and data science, helping merchants increase authorization rates for card-on-file transactions by as much as 10 percent.

Authorization Optimization is designed for businesses with high volumes of digital payments. Examples include the burgeoning subscription economy, which relies heavily on recurring payments, and businesses like ride-sharing platforms that depend on customer-initiated digital transactions via stored payment information.

“Nearly $15 billion in ecommerce revenue is missed annually, because merchants haven’t had a reliable authorization optimization strategy,” said Nandan Sheth, Head of Global Digital Commerce at First Data. “With our new Authorization Optimization solution, we’re providing our enterprise clients with powerful back-end support, fueled by industry-leading data intelligence. This insightful intelligence is used to boost authorization rates, as well as helps merchants retain more customers through a deeper understanding of their portfolio.”

First Data’s Authorization Optimization solution is powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and a team of data scientists. The solution’s enterprise insights portal offers a holistic view of authorization information by card type and issuer. Its machine learning rules engine provides merchants proactive management of a merchant’s card on-file database, which helps reduce services cancellation while securely updating new payment information, without customer intervention.

Authorization Optimization has proven to dramatically increase revenues for merchants. For example, First Data recently implemented Authorization Optimization for a multinational digital gaming merchant. By applying these new capabilities, the client was able to successfully process tens of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions that would have otherwise been declined.*

First Data’s Authorization Optimization solution also enables merchants to conduct their own analytics — in a single dashboard — on a wide variety of data types. This includes card volume, authorization and decline rates, card types, geography, customer demographics, repeat customer data, and average ticket size, among others. By conducting extensive and customized benchmarking of data in real-time, operational adjustments can be made on an as-needed basis to enable merchants to better manage operations and understand their customers. 

The initiative was designed to help banks take on the growing popularity of digital, contactless payment services offered by big tech firms such as Apple, Google, Amazon and Alibaba in China.

But, the ECB acknowledges that for TIPS to take off, consumers need user-friendly ways to make instant payments.

The ECB is inviting service providers to develop their own prototypes and show them off, for free, at the event at the bank's headquarters in Frankfurt 6 on May and 7 May. Firms have until 30 March to express their interest, with participation confirmed in mid April.

Last month the EU Commission’s vice president in charge of financial services, Valdis Dombrovskis, raised the possibility of more concrete actions to push TIPS adoption, suggesting that a "regulatory push" might be needed.

Greg Adelson, vice president of Jack Henry & Associates and general manager of JHA Payment Solutions™, commented, “Ensenta has been an excellent acquisition and addition to our remote deposit capture portfolio. Community banks are continuing to differentiate themselves through high-tech, high-touch services such as mobile remote deposit. Furthermore, Ensenta will provide ICBA member bank customers with a superior user experience from login to transaction completion.”

More than 1,300 financial institutions leverage Ensenta’s remote deposit capture services. The suite also offers Ensenta Agile Risk ManagementSM which allows institutions to improve the customer experience (CX) with higher limits and faster funds availability without allocating new resources.

Chris Lorence ICBA group executive vice president, member engagement and strategy, said, “Community banks continue to seek out solutions that provide greater choice and convenience for customers while freeing up bank resources to focus on delivering an enhanced customer experience. Ensenta is a great addition to our long and mutually rewarding relationship with Jack Henry as community banks continue to meet their customers’ evolving payments needs.”

Reporting to the head of crypto within Visa's product group, the new recruit will be responsible for managing a product roadmap and collaborating with stakeholders across the card scheme's strategy, risk, research, and engineering organizations.

"This individual will work in close collaboration with the Visa Research team to develop new products to deliver value to fintechs and Visa," states the posting. "This person should have great problem solving skills and creativity to find new opportunities and anticipate how cryptocurrencies could impact payments."

The ideal candidate will "possess significant functional knowledge of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and players involved, including in-depth knowledge around permissionless blockchain technology as well as a deep understanding of existing retail payment solutions".