5 5 May 2011

News:

Data breach legislation should extend to 'all EU policies' - including e-commerce and social networking sites, and, importantly, online banking - Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, said in a 3 May speech.

The EU banking sector has, for the first time, proposed a series of standards for mobile payments.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced on 20 April that it intends to set a limit on the amount of cash individuals and corporate organisations can withdraw from ATMs, in a bid to boost the take-up of online payments.

Features:

India
USA
Brazil
UK
USA

On 21 April 2011, the UK Payments Council ('the Council') published a consultation on updating the National Payments Plan ('the Plan'), which sets out steps to improve payment services in the UK. The Plan, first published in 2008, sets out the Council's ten-year vision in respect of the UK payments - in the Plan, the Council committed to review and update the Plan every three years, to make sure that it remains relevant. This consultation is part of the first review and the deadline for consultation responses is 1 July 2011. The consultation seeks views on future developments in the UK payments market, and how the Council can perform its role in ensuring that all interested parties benefit from the functioning of the payments market.

The financial sector was one of the first to understand the importance of social media for communication within the organisation as well as with the public at large. However, much of the data in that sector is sensitive by nature and, as such, poses problems in terms of transmission, encryption and storage. Sarah Carter, Vice-President of Marketing at Actiance, which specialises in social networking compliance, examines what financial organisations need to do to take advantage of the use of social media.

The development of digital currencies has meant that legislation has had to adapt to keep track of industry innovation, to promote transparency and, importantly, user trust and security. In this respect, the US Treasury has implemented a series of measures to keep make sure that internet financial transactions are secure. Mark Herpel, Editor of DGC Magazine, discusses the difficulties facing the regulation of online payment systems.

The recent Sony data breach, which led to the misplacement of tens of millions of personal consumer records, is only the latest installment in the online cyber threat saga. Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, a Senior Lecturer at the University of South Australia, gives an overview of the current problems the financial industry faces and which countermeasures institutions need to take.

Despite the widespread move to the cloud for key corporate applications, less than 1% of UK organisations have taken this route, due to fears over security and storage of sensitive data. Georgia Leybourne, Sales & Marketing Director at Albany Software, explains why organisations need to understand where and how their payments are being processed when they adopt an online solution.

Online gambling payments have been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, with the US Department of Justice's wave of indictments over three US poker networks' alleged illegal gambling and illegal payment processing activities. Despite this, online gambling is a legal, regulated business in the UK and a number of other countries around the globe. Precisely because it operates in an electronic medium, it can be subjected to a level of oversight that far exceeds what can be applied in a face-to-face environment where cash is the norm. Rick Smith, Head of Government Affairs, Policy and Regulation at UC Group, discusses the process through which online gambling payments are regulated.