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Digital Transactions took a look at data from credit-reporting agency TransUnion LLC and determined that the shift to digital payment methods brought on by COVID-19 concerns fueled a concurrent rapid rise in fraud and identity theft though those channels. In other words, a pandemic became endemic to fraud.
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An article at PaymentsJournal.com cites a 2019 survey by Aite Group indicating that only 18% of banks were at that point moving from a transaction-based revenue model to a data-based approach. While this figure is unlikely to have changed significantly since, PaymentsJournal.com goes on to note that data-driven payments are increasingly on the agenda for banks and we can expect more movement towards this.
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This comes as no surprise to anyone involved with financial institutions — a new round of stimulus checks has spurred a new round of fraud. The Better Business Bureau has already received reports of con artists asking individuals to provide personal information in order to receive their stimulus funds. WWMT in Michigan points out, for instance, that scammers were contacting people through text messages, e-mail, and robocalls about the new COVID-19 stimulus checks and direct deposits.
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A recent webinar sponsored by Fiserv highlighted reconciliation challenges faced by modern financial institutions as so many consumers adopt digital channels for payments. Fiserv’s 2020 Expectations & Experiences: Consumer Payments survey found that digital payments are indeed on the rise and confidence with virtual payment cards — the Apple Wallet, for instance — is growing.
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BEC, or business email compromise, is a species of scam that has been around for as long as businesses have used email. However, the sharp spike in remote working arrangements (including permanent changes to remote work) spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic has made it a much more tempting (and fruitful) target for scamsters. Attackers are taking advantage of the new need for off-site communications from employee home networks to their employers’ corporate networks.
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Artificial intelligence is already playing a significant role in worldwide healthcare, but Michael Spencer, editor in chief at The Last Futurist, is here to assure you that we haven’t seen anything yet: The complexity and rise of data in healthcare means that artificial intelligence will increasingly be applied within the field. Several types of AI are already being employed by payers and providers of care and life sciences companies. AI is also starting to be used in pharma drug combinations and exploratory combinations and will drive a new era of biotechnology.
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Ingo Money CEO Drew Edwards spent some time with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster talking about distributed banking — aka banking-as-a-service — and how it differs from open banking. Edwards said that open banking is mostly about moving information, not about moving money between a consumer, her bank, and a third party, like the Robinhood app — at least for now. That data exchange makes it possible for a FinTech to step into the middle of the transaction but also makes the bank little more than the “dumb pipes” that serve as the funding source.
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As 2021 gets underway — already fairly eventfully — Trace Fooshee of Aite Group talks to BankInfo Security’s Nick Holland about what fraud trends they foresee in the coming year. Mr. Fooshee notes that, early in the pandemic, FI consensus was to gird themselves for a significant rise in across-the-board fraud activity. However, the industry was somewhat surprised to see that conventional fraud — debit fraud, check fraud, etc. — did not spike all at once.
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The trading platform Blocktrade recently published their predictions for the coming year in the fintech and payment worlds. “We all know that 2020 was a highly unusual year – the Covid pandemic not only impacted the global economy, it also accelerated ongoing changes and developments in the Fintech and Payment industry.”
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It was suspected cockfighting that got the attention of authorities at first. However, they found a wider spectrum of crime when they arrived at the home of this alleged perpetrator: “When MDPD arrived, they found evidence that made plain the home also doubled as the headquarters for a second illegal business: counterfeit check cashing,” U.S. prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
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