Included in this issue: Payment Services Stakeholder Liaison Group: minutes published; UK suffers Europe's largest rise in annual card fraud losses; Cyber crime unit set up in Australia and more...

REGULATORY

Payment Services Stakeholder Liaison Group: minutes published

The FCA has published the minutes of the first meeting of the reconvened Payment Services Stakeholder Liaison Group (SLG). The SLG last met in July 2013 and has been reconvened by the FCA to develop its approach to the UK implementation of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) by 13 January 2018. Items discussed included:

• A six week consultation by HM Treasury on draft regulations implementing PSD2 (expected to begin in August 2016).
• FCA consultation on revised guidance for payment services planned for H1 2017.
• The blocking of funds on a card-based payment account when the transaction amount is not known in advance (Article 75 of PSD2).
• The new definition of acquiring (Article 4(44) of PSD2).
• Statistical data on fraud to be collected under Article 96(7) of PSD2.
• The meaning of "accessible online" (Articles 65-67 of PSD2).

The SLG will next meet on 13 September 2016.

FCA, 4 August 2016

UK

UK suffers Europe's largest rise in annual card fraud losses

Losses from card fraud in the UK soared by 18% in 2015, the largest rise in Europe, brought about by online shopping increases and data breaches. Card fraud rose in 10 out of the 19 countries in the Euromonitor International data study, but the UK contributed almost 43% of total losses across the 19 countries.

Asset Finance International, 8 August 2016

WORLDWIDE

Cyber crime unit set up in Australia

The Australian Government's financial intelligence agency Austrac has set up a specialist cyber intelligence unit to investigate online payment platforms and financial cybercrime as a concerted initiative to prevent money-laundering and online terrorism.

Minister for Justice, 9 August 2016

European Payments Council publish results of poll on blockchain payments

The EPC has published results of its poll earlier this summer, assessing what professionals working in the payments industry really think of blockchain and its potential impact on payments. Most respondents agreed blockchain technology will have an impact on the European payments landscape by 2025 but only 24% feel that it is likely to impact the overall infrastructure of the payments mass market.

EPC, 9 August 2016

Bitcoin loss after cyber-attack on exchange

Users of the Bitfinex Hong Kong based exchange have been told they will lose 36% of their assets following a recent cyber attack, with the impact of the £49m loss being shared across the site's users. Customers have been told they will receive a BFX token to offset their losses as these can eventually be exchanged for repayment by Bitfinex or for shares in Bitfinex's parent company.

BBC News, 8 August 2016

Second meeting of the steering committee of the mobile proxy forum

Acting as a facilitator in the context of P2P mobile payments, the EPC has published a summary of the second meeting of the Steering Committee of the Mobile Proxy Forum which took place in May. The name "Mobile Proxy Forum" was approved and next steps for ensuring user-friendly solutions to pan-European interoperability of P2P mobile payments were considered.

EPC, 7 August 2016

EPC publishes explanatory note on use of COR1 and SMNDA

The EPC has published an explanatory note to help scheme participants process the codes "COR1" and "SMNDA" in R-transactions relating to original SEPA Direct Debit collections.

EPC, 6 August 2016