China's international payments system is almost ready

From Business Insider -

“A long-awaited China International Payment System (CIPS) that would facilitate international usage of the yuan is ready and may be launched as early as September or October, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

The system, which would be a worldwide payments superhighway for the yuan, will replace a patchwork of networks and allow hassle-free renminbi transactions, greatly boosting the internationalization of the Chinese currency.”

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Carbanak Hackers Target Banks in $1bn Attack Campaign

From Info Security –

“Security experts have uncovered a major targeted attack campaign in which criminals infiltrated around 100 banks worldwide and made off with up to $1bn over a two-year period.

Interpol, Europol, local law enforcers and Kaspersky Lab worked together on the case.

They estimate that the hackers – who hail from Russia, Ukraine, Europe and China – stole up to $10m per raid, with each attack lasting between two and four months.

The attacks are said to begin with a classic spear phishing email sent to a bank employee, infecting them with the Carbanak malware.

Once in the bank’s internal network, the hackers searched for administrator machines which allowed them to monitor cash transfer activity. They were then able to mimic that same activity at a later stage to transfer money out to themselves, according to Kaspersky Lab.

Sometimes they used online banking or international e-payment systems to transfer the funds out to accounts in the US and China.

On other occasions they would hack a victim bank’s accounting systems, inflating customers’ account balances by adding some extra zeros and then stealing the extra funds via a fraudulent transaction.

A third method of stealing cash was apparently to program specific ATMs to dispense money at certain times and then arrange for a gang member to collect it.”

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Terrorism, fines and money laundering: why banks say no to poor customers

From The Guardian –

“The tightening of international banking standards is making it difficult for low-income people in the global south to get access to banking services.

When people in developing countries don’t have access to a bank account, physical proximity to a bank is usually the first challenge that springs to mind, but sometimes the reason a person is unable to access a secure place to store their savings is as simple as them not having a piece of paper to prove who they are.

Banking regulations vary between countries, and some allow banks to set their own rules about what proof of identity they accept for new customers to make sure no one is excluded. In South Africa Standard Bank accepts a letter verifying a person’s address from a tribal chief for certain accounts, while Postbank offers a Mzansi account, which does not require any proof of address but only offers basic transactional services and has a balance limit of 25,000 South African Rand (£1,362).”

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European Parliamentarians raise concerns about Swift data sharing

From Finextra –

“Members of the European Parliament are to debate Europol's refusal to divulge information about US access to Swift international payments data amid concerns that the agreement is trampling over the data protection rights of EU consumers.

In October 2013, European MEPs voted in favour of suspending the EU/US bank data sharing deal in response to the US National Security Agency's alleged tapping of messages transmitted over the Swift banking network.”

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SWIFT announces 10% rebate on 2014 messaging

From Finextra –

“SWIFT announces a 10 percent rebate on 2014 messaging fees which will return more than EUR 30 million to SWIFT users worldwide. The rebate will be paid in early March 2015.”

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Russia to launch alternative to SWIFT bank transaction system in spring 2015

From RT

“Russia intends to have its own international inter-bank system up and running by May 2015. The Central of Russia says it needs to speed up preparations for its version of SWIFT in case of possible ”challenges” from the West.

"Given the challenges, Bank of Russia is creating its own system for transmitting financial messaging... It’s time to hurry up, so in the next few months we will have certain work done. The entire project for transmitting financial messages will be completed in May 2015," said Ramilya Kanafina, deputy head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank of Russia (CBR).”

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