An end date for SEPA?

A successful SEPA implementation is seen by many as the key to more efficient European retail payment systems. SEPA credit transfers and payment cards have been available since January 2008, and SEPA direct debits since November 2009.

However, migration to the new payment instruments continues to be slower than is actually needed to contain the costs to payment-service providers, realize the promised economies of scale and reap all the expected benefits.

Setting a clear deadline for the migration of legacy products to SEPA products would enable users and providers to draw up suitable plans and would put new life into the project.

The European Commission has conducted a public consultation on the possible end-date(s) for phasing out legacy domestic payment schemes corresponding to SEPA standards. The findings have confirmed that the various stakeholders would prefer to see the end-date (and possibly two separate end-dates for SEPA credit transfers and SEPA direct debits) established by means of an EU Regulation.

In June 2010 the Commission launched a new public consultation on the "Working paper on SEPA migration end-date" outlining the main features of such Regulation. This document and the answers received will form the basis of the EU Regulation on the end-date(s).

The documents are available from the following European Commission website HERE.

Remittances to Nepal under threat

As if the global recession was not enough, migrant workers, Nepal’s best ‘export’ that contributes nearly 20 percent of the country’s GDP, are facing a series of recent worries. The month started with 153 Nepali workers in Macau losing their jobs. Then there was news of 108 workers being duped by manpower agencies stranded in Libya.

More bad news followed with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai banning security agencies. It would lead to nearly 15,000-20,000 Nepalis working as security guards losing jobs.

Last month Nepal lifted a six-year ban on workers going to Iraq. While it came as relief to those who entered the country legally, the fate of nearly 100,000 illegal Nepalis in Iraq still hangs in balance. And Nepal has failed to persuade Israel to lift a 2009 ban on its workers.

These are worrying signals for the country that is largely dependent on remittances. At present Nepal receives around US $ 3 billion annually from the nearly three million migrant workers abroad (except India).

“The aftermath of the global financial crisis and the ensuing economic crisis is definitely a difficult time for Nepali migrants,” says columnist Chandan Sapkota.

The decline in demand of Nepali workers will directly affect remittances. It will also affect household purchasing power and sectors like real estate and imports where remittances money is flowing into.

Narrowing down of options won’t mean an increase in semi-skilled/unskilled Nepalis moving to India. But since the job market in Nepal is squeezing, skilled workers could turn to India, says Sapkota. India is home to nearly 10-12 million Nepali workers at present.

“The government has to wake up; seriously and with a detailed plan,” Sapkota says.

But with political stability eluding Nepal, when some measures will be put into place is anyone’s guess.

Barclays systems crash leaves shoppers stranded

Thousands of Barclays customers in Britain were unable to get into their bank accounts or withdraw money from cash machines last Saturday after a nationwide system crash. The problems, which began around noon, hit telephone and online banking services and caused frustration at retail outlets as embarrassed shoppers had to abandon purchases at the tills.

Barclays' telephone centers were inundated with calls from customers, many angry at the lack of information from the bank. A spokeswoman said: "We apologise to customers for any inconvenience."

The latest malfunctions follow disruption in June last year, when five million customers were unable to withdraw cash from the bank’s ATMs.

Cheque deposits on your mobile phone

Mobile banking is moving fast – especially in the land of the cheque – the United States.

Chase has introduced a new mobile banking service – depositing your old fashioned paper cheque using your mobile phone. This has been achieved by using an application for Apples iPhone that allows bank customers to deposit cheques with the camera-enabled smartphone.

This means no more trips to a local bank branch or ATM or having the hassle with deposit slips. Customers of Chase simply use their phones' cameras to snap pictures of the front and back of the endorsed cheques and electronically send them to the bank.

The technology, called "remote deposit capture," is gaining popularity among many banks and credit unions.

More common than mobile applications are programs that allow customers to deposit cheques with their home computer scanners. Several local financial institutions have such programs or plan to start them soon.

Ghanaian postal officer charged with remittance theft

A female Assistant Postal Officer of the Ghana Post at Suame in charge of the Western Union Money Transfer Service, accused of embezzling GH¢278,555 belonging to the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), has appeared before a circuit court in Kumasi, charged with stealing.

Louisa Osei-Agyemang is said to have connived with some customers of the Western Union Money Transfer service of the ADB to inflate remittances and pocketed the difference.

She pleaded not guilty to the charge and the court, presided over by Mr. R.M. Kogyapwah, admitted her to a GH¢270,000 bail with two sureties to be justified. She is to reappear on September 22.

Corporal Godwin Ahianyo of the Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Unit said Ms Osei-Agyemang’s activities came to light during an audit when it was detected that the total money advanced to the office for clearance did not tally with the amount of money expected to be released to customers.

A further examination of the books revealed that between January 2009 and early August this year, some of the customers were paid remittances far in excess of what they were due.

Cpl Ahianyo said a report was made to the Regional Accountant of the Ghana Post and Ms Osei-Agyemang was invited to the regional office to explain the unbalanced amount. The regional accountant referred the case to the police.

Mr Ahianyo said Ms osei-Agyeman was initially granted a police enquiry bail, but after preliminary investigations, she was re-arrested last Wednesday and appeared before the court.

More than a million WebPages hit by SQL attacks

Over 1 million WebPages were infected in the course of an attack that can expose users to malware exploits. Among these websites there are at least two that belong to Apple. The SQL injection attacks bombard the websites of legitimate companies with database commands that attempt to add hidden links that lead to malware exploits.

“These attacks have been ongoing and are changing pretty often,” said Mary Landesman, a senior researcher with ScanSafe, a Cisco-owned service that provides customers with real-time intelligence about malicious sites. “Interestingly, many of the sites compromised have been involved in repeated compromises over the past few months. It's not clear whether these are the work of the same attackers or are competing attacks.”

SQL injection attacks succeed because web applications don't properly filter search queries and other user-supplied input for malicious text. When the data is processed, commands are passed to a website's backend server, causing it to add links or cough up sensitive information.

The attacks that hit Apple used highly encoded text strings to sneak past web-application filters.

The exploits used this time around weren't as effective as they might have been. According to Landesman, many of the iframes buried into the websites contained HTML that couldn't be rendered.

Doing a web search? Take care about what you look for

This year Cameron Diaz took the first place in the list of most dangerous search clues to be typed in the search engine query according to an annual McAfee report. Last year the top of the list was occupied by Jessica Biel.

If you look for any of the celebrities in the McAfee's annual list of the most dangerous stars to search for on the Web you risk to have a virus installed on your PC after you press some links in the search results.

"It's sort of a little bit of rivalry from the traditional world going to the cyber world," said Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee's vice president of threat research. "It's fascinating how cyber criminals can be so in tune with the popularity of various actresses and models. …They're actually a fantastic barometer of their popularity."

McAfee published the rankings of the riskiest websites every year using its free software SiteAdvisor. Its 2010 study, which McAfee has just released, found that users have a 19 percent chance of landing on a malicious site when they search the Web for "Cameron Diaz." Searching for pictures and downloads of the actress gives you a 10 percent chance of reaching a site infected with spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other cyber traps that can harm your computer or steal personal information.

Alperovitch said that even though celebrity searches were safer overall this year, searching for Diaz is even riskier than searching for Biel.

"She's been in the spotlight recently with a number of blockbuster movies, "Knight and Day," of course, with Tom Cruise," he said. "What we see is that we people who are in the news recently… they tend to be at the top of the list because they're on peoples' minds. People tend to go on Google and Bing and search for them after they've watched their movies. Cyber criminals realize that very well and target people when they do this."

The full list of the most dangerous names to search on the web is as follows:

1. Cameron Diaz
2. Julia Roberts
3. Jessica Biel
4. Gisele Bundchen
5. Brad Pitt
6. Adriana Lima
7. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Nicole Kidman
8. Tom Cruise