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Inevitable!
Amazon has deferred its plan to stop customers using Visa credit cards at the last minute, says the Independent.
Although Curve had a hack:
As Amazon UK stops accepting Visa credit cards from later this week, fintech Curve says it has a "hack" that will enable shoppers to still make payments with the banned cards.
While Visa and Amazon have been sorting things out Nadja Bennett has been very creative:
Amazon vs Visa: why no-one is clucking in this game of corporate chicken.
It has been quite a hen-durance race to get to this point already. They really got themselves into a peck-le. One would assume they're working around the cluck to find a resolution but if not - have you updated your cards on Amazon UK before all Visa Credit Cards get eggs-pelled?
PS: The best chicken puns don’t fall far from the poul-tree.
More on this here: https://lnkd.in/djVNvu3i
Payments:Unpacked Podcast
Last Monday we launched a new series of the Payments:Unpacked podcast - in our launch episode we featured Peter Cornforth from Answer Pay and we shone a light on the UK's new bill payments overlay service - Request to Pay.
Peter describes what Request to Pay is, considers the benefits to both the biller and the payer, considers how the service can support the banks mission to thwart the fraudster, explores the various use cases that Request to Pay seeks to address, compares the UK's offering with Europe and further afield, explains why Request to Pay and Open Banking can be natural bedfellows and considers how a PSP might implement the service.
Our second podcast will be published soon but, in the meantime, you can find our first podcast now on Spotify or by clicking the image above.
Accessing the UK's Interbank Payment Systems
The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has published their latest access and governance report showing trends and developments in interbank payment systems for the period 2019 and 2020.
The report is aimed at anyone with an interest in access trends for interbank systems, and in their governance arrangements. This includes payment system operators, PSPs, existing and prospective indirect access providers and others involved in interbank payments
The full PSR report can be downloaded from the PSR’s website - link: Access and Governance report January 2022.
Whilst there is no substitute for reading the full report (it’s only 38 pages) this edition of Payments:Unpacked Extra summarises the three primary areas of the report into a series of ‘quick fire’ key facts.
Normally the PSR publishes an annual report on access and governance aspects of the UK’s interbank payment systems. However due to COVID related constraints, this latest report covers the period 2019 and 2020 with references to 2021 where appropriate. The report is the fifth report issued since the creation of the PSR in 2015. The previous reports were published in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The focus and content of this annual report has evolved and reflects the PSR’s revised approach to monitoring impacts and developments in the sector and the development of its strategy.
The scope of the report is limited to the operators of, and access to, the interbank (or ‘account-to-account’) payment systems regulated by the PSR:
Bacs (Pay.UK)
Faster Payments (Pay.UK)
Image Clearing System (Pay.UK)
CHAPS (Bank of England).
The other systems subjected to the PSR’s regulatory umbrella are not within scope of this report.
The report is based on data received through formal information requests from six indirect access providers that provide PSP’s with agency and non-agency access to the interbank payment systems. Due to their recent entry as indirect access providers Modulr and LHV Bank were not asked to provide data for this reporting period.
In addition the report is informed by a number of other sources including Pay.UK, Bank of England, the FCA and notifications and complaints received by the PSR.
The Payments:Unpacked summary covers:
Direct Access Developments
Indirect Access Developments
Governance Assessment
More: Accessing the UK's Interbank Payment Systems.
Scam Alert from Sarah Rutherford at FICO: We Can All Fall Victim to Social Engineering and Fraud
The International Fraud Awareness Week back in November is probably a distant memory but every week is Fraud Awareness Week for FICO, as we focus on helping banks and other financial institutions worldwide detect and manage fraud. Fraud is a big burden for such organizations but there are of course other victims – people just like you and me. Their lives can be turned upside down and their finances ruined when they become victims of clever scam artists. Sometimes sympathy for them is in short supply, but social engineering is routinely used against all of us. We can all become victims of fraud.
Despite numerous studies and newspaper headlines informing us about the scams that fraudsters perpetrate, most of us don’t think we can easily be tricked into handing over money to criminals. FICO recently carried out a survey of 12,000 people in 12 countries. We asked them about the kind of financial crime that was worrying to them. Less than 7% of people said that they were worried about a fraudster tricking them into sending a payment. (For comparison, slightly more people were worried about a pickpocket stealing their wallet or purse and 31% were worried about a fraudster using information about them to takeover one of their financial accounts.)
Because people don’t feel they are vulnerable to social engineering techniques, education can be doomed to failure – why learn a lesson you don’t think you need? This is compounded by a feeling that scams happen to those who are vulnerable or in some way naïve or stupid.
Sarah recently attended a fraud conference where speaker after speaker used the trope of the lonely, old woman as the victim of fraud. This compounds the idea that scams happen to other people – people that aren’t like us. There are implications:
Victims are encouraged to feel foolish about being victims. This makes them less likely to report crime and if they do, more likely to accept a poor outcome in terms of restitution and investigation.
People who don’t consider themselves naïve or foolish develop a false sense of security and actually become more vulnerable to fraud.
Financial institutions are less likely to share liability (and loss) with their scammed customers – after all it’s the customers’ own fault they were taken in.
Read the full guest blog from Sarah Rutherford at FICO - for Sarah every week is Fraud Awareness Week…..
Authorised Push Payment (APP) Scams
This week Northey Point published its response to the Payment Systems Regulators consultation on Authorised Push Payment (APP) Scams (CP21/10).
The levels of APP Fraud in the UK are eye watering with £355m of fraud in the first half of 2021, exceeding card fraud for the first time. Despite the introduction of the Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) and Confirmation of Payee (CoP) the levels of fraud continue to grow and are causing significant harm to UK consumers and businesses.
Posing as a legitimate payee or creating a fraudulent reason for a payment is becoming a growing and rewarding enterprise – the payments industry, its regulators and our government need to do better. Wherever an organisation sits within the payments value chain it is inexcusable not to take action on this blight on payments in the UK.
Trust and confidence in digital payments caused by APP Fraud is being eroded and will threaten the societal shift to a digital payments economy.
More: Payment Systems Regulators consultation on Authorised Push Payment (APP) Scams (CP21/10).
Weekly ATM value and volume figures 9 January 2022.
The volume of ATM transactions increased by 9% when compared to the previous week in 2022.
The volume of ATM transactions increased by 12% when compared to the equivalent week in 2021.
The volume of ATM transactions decreased by 40% when compared to the equivalent week in 2020.
More: Cash 101
Bank of England’s ISO 20022 Migration
Akhil Rao has been summarising the changes to the Bank of England’s ISO 20022 migration announced January 2022.
The migration of CHAPS to ISO 20022: Transition State 2 will now take place as a single event in April 2023, rather than two separate stages in June 2022 (migration from MT to MX (ISO) network) and February 2023 (enablement of enhanced data). Enhanced data will be immediately supported from April 2023; removing the need for an initial like-for-like implementation stage.
There will be a new test environment (the Pilot Platform) open to all CHAPS Direct Participants from summer 2022. This will support enhanced ISO 20022 messaging, and enable an extended testing period for enhanced messages.
Direct Participants who elected to migrate non-payment messages (e.g. statements, notifications and liquidity-related messages) from MT to ISO 20022 format when the new core ledger goes live will now see these messages migrate in spring 2024.
More: https://lnkd.in/gX3QnZtJ
Step2 to get upgrade to process payments in minutes and around the clock
EBA Clearing will upgrade its Step2 pan-European mass payment system later this year to process Sepa transactions around the clock, seven days a week, and to provide settlement results to participating banks in minutes.
Step2 processes on average 55 million Sepa credit transfers and direct debits per day, connecting more than 4800 payment service providers operating in Europe.
The upgrade, planned for November, will enable Step2 participants to shorten end-to-end processing timelines for retail payments in euro from hours to minutes.
Thanks to the Step2 upgrade, large payment volumes can be reliably processed at near-real-time speed around the clock without any increase in processing costs or significant new investments.
Erwin Kulk, head, service development and management, EBA Clearing
Don’t forget: The UK’s path to digital inclusion
Join LINK and friends the 9th February to explore the UK’s path to digital inclusion.
Register: The UK’s path to digital inclusion.
In brief
Mastercard and Coinbase partner to let people buy NFTs with cards.
UK BNPL fintech Zilch to launch in Europe and Railsbank launches white label BNPL package for retailers
Lords Committee pours cold water on UK CBDC
ICYMI
Longer Read: Driving Inclusivity - The Hybrid Branch of the Future
Digital transformation shouldn’t leave anyone excluded or left behind by the pace of change. Uniting digital and physical can create financial services that work for all.
CEO of Vocalink, Gregor Dobbie, shared with WIRED UK how crucial it is to continue supporting people that use cash, whether it’s through our partnerships with the Post Office or Good Things Foundation Nobody in the Dark initiative.
Read: Driving Inclusivity: The Hybrid Branch of the Future
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Mike