.svg)
Mobile Payments Set To Dominate By End of 2024, Says Dutch Central Bank
The proportion of contactless point-of-sale (POS) payments using a smartphone or smartwatch has increased sharply in the Netherlands, from 21 percent in 2022 to 29 percent in 2023.
The central bank says the increase has come largely at the expense of debit card payments, both contactless and chip and PIN, whose share of payments continues to fall.
The shift can also be seen throughout 2023: in the first month of 2023, 23 percent of all POS payments were made using a smartphone or smartwatch, while in the last month of the year it was 33 percent.
If this trend continues, the central bank said that contactless payment by mobile or smartwatch will be the most common way to pay at the checkout later in 2024.
FinCEN Warns Of 'Concerning' Rise In US Passport Fraud
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an office of the US Treasury, has issued a notice to financial institutions (FIs) warning that identity theft using counterfeit US passport cards is on the rise.
The notice provides an overview of typologies associated with US passport card fraud, highlights red flags and reminds FIs of their reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).
Working in partnership with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), which issues US passports, FinCEN aims to reduce instances of passport fraud and prevent further losses among victims.
From 2018 to 2023, US passport card fraud resulted in $10m in actual losses and $8m in additional attempted losses, with more than 4,000 victims in the US, the DSS said.
However, the agency also said the real number of victims and losses are likely to be “significantly” higher due to lack of reporting.
Revolut To Expand Domestic Presence In India Following New Approval
Revolut has received an in-principle authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to issue prepaid instruments (PPI), prepaid cards and wallets within India.
This will add to Revolut’s existing status in India as a Category II Authorised Dealer (ADII), allowing it to issue multi-currency forex cards and offering cross-border remittances.
“We are now in a position to work towards offering Indian consumers both international and domestic payment solutions on a single platform,” said Sumedha Uppal, marketing manager at Revolut India.
“Not only does this increase our total addressable market by a mile, it is a continued reminder of the faith that the regulator has in us.”
Earlier this month, Revolut, which now boasts more than 40m users, secured a licence to launch in Mexico. However, its UK banking licence application remains in limbo.
Fraud Cases More Than Double In Denmark
Danish banks registered a total of 9,127 cases of online banking fraud in 2023, according to trade association Finance Denmark. This is more than twice as many cases as the previous year.
According to the trade association, criminals attempted to make over DKK225m ($32.1m) in fraudulent transactions.
Although banks were able to prevent fraud in more than half of the cases, 3,842 cases ended with a loss for either the customer or the bank of a total of DKK104.9m ($15m).
"Unfortunately, we have to state that IT-related financial fraud is increasing year on year, and this also applies to online banking fraud," said Michael Busk-Jepsen, digitisation director at Finance Denmark.
"It most often occurs when the criminal persuades the victim to either transfer money to the criminal's account himself or to hand over information so that the criminal can do so himself."
