Are payment processors for consumer financial service providers required to understand the complex regulatory regimes to which their clients are subject, and verify that clients are complying with those requirements?
SWIFT, a Belgium-based, bank-owned co-op and provider of financial messaging services, has been aware of flaws in the way smaller banks used SWIFT’s messaging terminals, thus compromising the security of the system, but the organization did little to address the matter. Those are the assertions of more than a dozen current and former high-ranking Swift officials, according to a Reuters report on Aug. 17.
After a previous attempt by FinCEN to implement an anti-money laundering rule stalled and was withdrawn, the agency is planning to reintroduce a version of the rule. A FinCEN spokesman told Reuters the rule is being revised and could be submitted next year.
Kyc.com is partnering with Dow Jones, Exiger and Regulatory DataCorp (RDC) to drive standardisation and compliance for Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. The alliance plans to deliver an end-to-end KYC process integrating compliance, onboarding, sanctions, screening, negative media searches and client risk assessment across regulatory regimes and multiple jurisdictions. Joel Lange, managing director of Dow […]
Banking is going digital and instantaneous, which is great news for customers. But it is also a great headache for banks, as fraud is going that way too – the money can disappear into fraudsters’ virtual pockets with a blink of an eye, anytime, anywhere. At the same time, the real-time capabilities of new solutions […]
Blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic and LexisNexis Risk Solutions have partnered for the “first” use of “bank-grade” risk management for Bitcoin. Elliptic has integrated LexisNexis’s anti-money laundering (AML) risk management data into its Bitcoin transaction monitoring and compliance products. The two firms have built a proof-of-concept that uses financial intelligence data from LexisNexis and presents it […]
The European Commission’s proposed changes to anti-money laundering rules would place an “immense burden on the regulated e-money sector,” the Prepaid International Forum argues in a new position paper.
Office Depot and an associated gift card program manager are suing Delaware officials in federal court, challenging the state’s unclaimed property law. The Florida-based retail chain and Virginia-based North American Card and Coupon Services LLC, Office Depot’s gift card operator, said Delaware’s escheat law violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizures.
A Florida man should have gotten his bitcoin through a reputable virtual currency exchange instead of some guys meeting in a Boston Market restaurant parking lot in the middle of the night. Likely surprising no one, a deal to exchange $28,000 for the equivalent in bitcoin went bad, leading to one arrest.
The Regtech Supplier Performance Report 2016, published by Market Fintech Limited and supported by Banking Technology, estimates that more 189 global financial institutions have deployed a range of new regulatory technology (regtech) solutions from 20+ specialist suppliers in just a couple of years.
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Abcul slow on tech modernisation project Exclusive: First credit unions to go live before year-end. New mobile banking for SMEs readies for UK launch Tide will offer a “nimble small business current account”. Top ten retail banking sites […]
Shell Oil is coughing up civil penalties, investigative costs and restitution after being accused of tricking consumers with payments ads for various Shell fuel rewards and gift card programs.
They want permission from national anti-trust regulators to negotiate as a bloc with Apple over putting their own mobile payment technologies on iPhones.
A group Texas merchants wants to take its battle against a Texas law prohibiting them from imposing a surcharge on customers paying with a credit card to the Supreme Court, arguing that the statute violates the merchants’ free speech rights.
There was some big news for bank’s risk and finance technology departments last month. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-13, Financial Instruments – Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments. Notably, this standard introduces a new impairment model, commonly known as the CECL (current […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! BBA records dramatic increase in mobile banking usage Digital banking is in a “consumer-led revolution”. MasterCard buys VocaLink for $920 million Current owners Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS will receive a handy windfall. Cidel Bank implementing ERI’S Olympic […]
In this contentious presidential election cycle, it’s hard to imagine anything getting 70 percent of the Senate to back it. But 70 U.S. Senators want the CFPB to lay off credit unions and community banks when it comes to certain, unspecified rules.
A U.K. hearing scheduled for October will consider if Brexit can happen without parliamentary approval. The U.K.’s June 23 vote to leave the union has led to confusion and much speculation in the payments world, as the industry wonders about such issues as licenses and passporting, along with other financial services regulations.
The CFPB’s recent enforcement action against Santander Bank over the bank’s overdraft practices underscores federal regulators’ focus on holding regulated institutions responsible for the actions of third-party vendors, and could provide a preview of the CFPB’s upcoming rulemaking on overdraft.
A critical congressional report was released this week claiming the FDIC has been hacked several times over several years and regulators have been covering up or misrepresenting breaches. In an ongoing investigation by the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee, the report implicates FDIC employees, as well as the Chinese government, as responsible for some of the breaches.
The latest FDIC guidance on brokered deposits, released on June 30, has done little to alleviate industry concerns about the treatment of prepaid card loads as brokered deposits.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has named Beverly Cole as deputy comptroller for compliance supervision. In the role, Cole will be responsible for developing and instituting compliance operational protocols, examination strategies and schedules.
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority board of governors has appointed Robert Cook as president and CEO, effective the second half of 2016.
Hoping to encourage fintech innovation, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority has issued a 17-page document that offers guidelines for how financial services firm can use outsourced Web-hosted services without running afoul of regulators.
A transatlantic data-transfer deal has won approval from European Union officials, giving official life to what’s known at the Privacy Shield pact.
The government of Saudi Arabia has banned in-person sales of one of the leading online payment products in the Middle East over concerns about money laundering and terrorist financing. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency—the country’s central bank—has barred the sale of CASHU prepaid cards through local agents, though consumers still may purchase cards from the company’s Website.
A months-long investigation that spanned from Malaysia to 14 European countries resulted last week in the bust of a credit card fraud ring allegedly responsible for approximately €5 million (US$5.5 million) in losses. The police investigation led to the arrest of 105 suspects, 29 in Malaysia and 76 in Europe.
Following up on its promise to tighten rules for prepaid cards and virtual currencies in an effort to thwart terrorism financing and money laundering, the European Commission has released a proposal this week to lower the threshold that triggers cardholder identification requirements for prepaid cards and ban the use of anonymous prepaid cards online.
Although the overall number of prepaid card-related complaints continues to represent less than 1 percent of total complaints the CFPB receives, prepaid complaints were up 28 percent in May to 226 from 177 the previous month, according to the federal consumer protection agency’s latest monthly complaint report.
MasterCard faces a $24.5 billion class action suit in the U.K. over its cross-border interchange fees. The suit arrives two years after the European Union labeled the interchange charged by the payment card network as unfair. European interchange caps went into effect in December of 2015.
Last week’s federal court rejection of a 4-year-old $5.7 billion interchange fee settlement has retailers applauding, and Visa and MasterCard gearing up for what could be years of ongoing ligation and perhaps a stop at the Supreme Court.
The U.K.’s historic decision to exit the European Union (or Brexit) last month has left many businesses speculating what the ramifications will be for them, especially e-money issuers based in the U.K. that have licenses that they passport to EU countries. Neopay, a U.K.-based e-money and payment regulatory consultancy, is hoping to assuage the jitters of new and established e-money companies in Europe with Brexit Insurance.
In a pair of legal battles that could have a ripple effect into the payments and retail sectors, Facebook and Google have invoked a recent Supreme Court decision and the U.S. Constitution to defend against claims that the companies’ facial recognition systems violate a key state biometric privacy law.
Indian payment solutions provider ItzCash Card Ltd. has received in-principle approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to participate in the country’s integrated bill payments platform, known as the Bharat Bill Payments System (BBPS).
Visa has filed a lawsuit against Walmart in a dispute over customers’ use of signatures or PINs to verify purchases with EMV-equipped debit cards at Walmart. Last month, Walmart sued Visa, claiming the payments network required the retailer to offer EMV debit users the option of signature or PIN verification in violation of the Durbin Amendment.
That would provide some long-awaited certainty to financial service providers and tech companies like Google and Facebook that handle consumers’ personal information.
U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) are demanding answers from Green Dot, MasterCard and Walmart about a May outage that left Green Dot-issued Walmart MoneyCard customers without access to certain prepaid services. The senators also asked MasterCard to distinguish the circumstances between the Green Dot outage and the one RushCard experienced October 2015 when it switched to MasterCard’s processing platform.
First filed in 2011 by a consortium of consumers, independent ATM operators and the National ATM Council, the suit alleges that payment networks’ ATM fee policies suppressed competition by barring ATM operators from offering discounts to users who transact via networks other than MasterCard or Visa.
In fiscal year 2015, 98 percent of the $3.98 trillion remitted to the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Services came through electronic payments.
Grocery giant Kroger Co. has filed a lawsuit against Visa Inc. over the payment network’s rules for verifying EMV debit card transactions. First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the suit is based on similar issues as those in a legal challenge by Walmart, which sued Visa in May.
