By Julian Goldsmith, 3 April 2008 13:07
NEWS
As Europe starts to adopt pan-continental payments systems, UK payments takers are ill-equipped to deal with the exposure to fraud this change might bring.
The Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) directive came into operation at the beginning of the year and Faster Payments protocols are due to go live in May.
But UK organisations in the utilities, telecoms and insurance sectors are not anticipating any change in processes or systems to introduce fraud countermeasures following the introduction of Sepa.
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Sepa allows organisations to offer services easily across the Euro area - but this also means fraudsters can bury their trails across a number of countries.
A survey of 43 companies in the utilities, telecoms and insurance sectors, from newly rebranded Experian Payments (formerly Eiger Systems), found 98 per cent are not planning to change their security policies, even though three-quarters have some business overseas. These sectors were chosen as a sample because they rely heavily on the automated direct debit payments Sepa seeks to streamline.
A significant majority (86 per cent) said they had yet to even assess the payment fraud risk of Sepa, while 15 per cent of the insurance companies questioned believed there was a negligible risk.
Gartner research VP of banking and investment services Alistair Newton said: "There is often a difficulty in assessing the value of data on payment fraud, because of the disparity in how it is measured from organisation to organisation. The important angle here is that there is clearly a lack of visibility around payment fraud at a corporate level."
Comments
There are 2 comments. Join the discussion
1. Roger
Massive increase in fraud crimes should make the government and banks realise that their data protection and Chip and PIN systems are diverting rather than deterring fraud crimes.
Fake documents have made our signature system unreliable while skimmers and pin-hole cameras etc. have made PIN system unreliable.
2. Tim Craig
Fraud is constantly mutating and the fraudsters will always find a way through or around any new security.
By sharing information through your regional Fraud Forum you can help to combat this pernicious crime.
Allocation of police resources to this problem are woefully inadequate. Regrettably it wins no points and this so called 'white collar' crime does not get the attention that bit should or does in the USA.
Inevitably premeditated it is nasty vicious crime that destroys Businesses and people. Help to fight it join your local Fraud Forum.
Tim Craig
Managing Director
Quercus Search
CBI Representative for the North West Forum Steering Committee www.northwestfraudforum.co.uk