Financial Crime, Payment Fraud and the Role of Digital Identity

EPA’s latest Whitepaper in their Project Financial Crime series provides an overview of the current landscape, emerging threats and insights into how fraud controls can be improved. The National crime agency estimates that the total cost of organised crime to the UK economy amounts to £37bn annually.

It looks at four key areas:

And found that there are three major gaps at the moment:

• Siloed operations
• The slow rollout of fraud prevention programs
• Outdated approaches
• Poor communications and practices.

The report reviews which technologies offer the greatest potential and the role of digital identity.

And concludes that financial crime and payments fraud has escalating problems that need to be taken more seriously by all stakeholders.

(Report available: here.)

Worldline enables UnionPay acceptance in Nordic countries, activating over 20,000 instore merchants

The strategic agreement between UnionPay International and Worldline will cater to the needs of Chinese visitors to the region as well as the increasing number of European UnionPay cardholders. The agreement will enable UnionPay card acceptance at some 20,000 in-store merchants across the Nordics via Worldline’s affiliate previously known under the name Bambora. 

Worldline is already one of the largest UnionPay acquirers in Europe, and the Nordics constitute the next step in its strategy to further expand UnionPay card acceptance into new markets. In the DACH countries, UnionPay merchant acceptance already exceeds 50%, rising to 90% in sectors such as luxury retail and almost 100% in tourist regions.

“Maintaining and developing long-term relationships is a significant success factor for UnionPay. Worldline has been our trusted partner in Europe for many years, and we look forward to taking the next step together to plan to build global coverage to better support our UPI issuing business”, said Han Wang, Deputy Head of Europe at UnionPay International.

Europe's top 25 leading banks are not meeting their green commitments

ShareAction’s report shows that in five critical climate and diversity areas:

• Net-zero targets and alignment
• Hi-carbon disclosures
• Sector policies (fossil fuels, shipping, biomass)
• Biodiversity
• Executive remuneration

 the banks are not meeting their pledges.

ShareAction list the questions that investors should ask when they are looking to engage with the banks on their commitments. The report also lists the actions that each of the banks should take.

(To download a copy of the report go to: https://shareaction.org/research-resources/.