All articles by EPI editorial
EPI editorial
Phishing’ for a big catch
Though relatively few European and American internet banking users fall victim to phishing attacks, the potential financial losses faced by banks remain substantial These costs could run to as much as $9.4 million annually per 1 million users if criminals abuse all compromised accounts. This warning comes from US-based security specialist Trusteer, which has just completed a study based on a sample of more than 3 million customers from 10 large US and European banks using its Rapport browser security service.
Infosys adds human touch to remote banking
Taking an innovative approach to online services, Indian technology systems and services vendor Infosys Technologies has launched Finacle Advizor, a product aimed at bridging the gap between the self-service and branch channels. Finacle Advizor, the company says, adds a human touch to the self-service channel by enabling customers to interact with a bank representative who can help with transaction assistance and provide advisory functions using existing internet banking capabilities. Haragopal Mangipudi, global head of Infosys Finacle division, explained that Finacle Advizor enables banks to offer high-touch, personalised and interactive services to customers.
A security wake-up call to merchants
Pritesh Patel of risk solutions specialist CyberSource discussed with EPI strategies and solutions that will enable merchants to significantly enhance customer data security.
VeriFone and Heartland at war over merchants
Thousands of merchants across the US find themselves in the unenviable position of being caught between the legal crossfire of to major payments industry players, Heartland Payments Systems and VeriFone. Hostility erupted in September when payment systems vendor VeriFone filed a lawsuit against Heartland, the fifth-largest payments processor in the US, alleging a POS terminal being developed by Heartland infringes one of its patents.
Norwegians can now switch banks in seconds
In a world-first, Norwegian consumers can now change bank and set up new bank accounts online thanks to the launch of a solution developed by Norwegian technology vendor EDB Business Partner in collaboration with BN Bank, a Norwegian online-only bank
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Global exits Latin American remittance market
US payment processor Global is to exit the remittance market with the sale of its DolEx and Europhil money transfer businesses to an affiliate of US private equity firm Palladium Equity Partners. The rationale behind the sales, said Global Payments chairman and CEO Paul Garcia, is to enable the company to focus exclusively on a strategy of expanding the international merchant acquiring side of its operations.
Archaic payments systems let US utilities down
Power utilities in the US are facing unprecedented challenges, some of which, for many, stem from outmoded billing and payments systems. This is the message from a study undertaken for payments processor Wausau Financial Systems (WFS) by consultancy Sierra Energy Group.
Fiserv to enter P2P payments race
One of the challenges in extending person-to-person (P2P) payments within the banking industry and one of the reasons the industry has been relegated to an observer of the P2P phenomenon is that traditional systems drive consumers away from bank websites to make the payments. Fiserv apparently wondered as well, and set to work developing the bank-aligned alternative: a P2P system that stays within the bank itself customers can easily send money from their bank account to any other bank account, online but also through mobile devices, with no need for consumers to share account information with third-parties.
A security solution not to be ignored
However, effective security solutions need not necessarily be complex or costly, as two experts in the field of biometric voice identification explained to EPI. The essence of security for financial institutions is verification of customer identities, a task for which PINs are being found to be increasingly inadequate.
PayFair takes on the card giants
Even the longest journey begins with the first small step aptly describes the launch of PayFair, the first Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) compliant payment card. That first small step came on 9 November when, under the banner One card for one Europe, the first payment using a PayFair card was undertaken in a supermarket in the Belgian town of Colruyt via terminal infrastructure supplied by French vendor Atos Wordline. We offer a card for the whole of Europe that benefits consumers, merchants and banks, precisely as the authorities want to see it, said Dominique Buysschaert, CEO of PayFair, an independent company founded in 2007 by a group of professionals drawn from the financial, IT and retailing sectors.