Crime

Aug 26, 2015

What can banks learn from the Ashley Madison affair?

So we’ve all seen the headlines about Ashley Madison, the adulterer's website as it’s nicknamed. Here’s a taste of what the site’s attitude is like (this is a real advert, not a spoof): It was the central focus of the film Men, Women & Children, which came out late last year. If you haven’t seen…

Jun 1, 2015

FIDO needs more vision for digital identities

The real way to crack the onboarding and criminal activity is to create strong and secure digital identities. We are moving in that direction, but it’s a long slow process. For ages now, I’ve written about getting rid of passwords and improving authentication using mobile technologies: Why is KYC so difficult? AML prevention lies in…

Apr 2, 2015

The billion dollar fraud and how deep learning might avoid it

Banks are being hacked all the time. According to various statistics, banks get over a million cyberattacks a year, and protecting the bank from breach is getting harder and harder. This was well illustrated by the Kapersky report of a cybercrime group in February gaining access to over $1 billion in two years by targeting over…

Oct 8, 2014

Simplification? No, let’s double the complexity (from four pillars to eight)

Some of you may remember that I had a fraud alert involving Braintree a month ago. The alert was raised by my credit card provider, after they detected a suspicious transaction for $699 via Braintree. Luckily, as I’m a little bit in the know, I knew that Braintree is part of PayPal but, even so…

Jul 17, 2014

Chris, with Intel inside

Building on the theme of digital identities, we are moving rapidly to a future based upon digital implants. I have had this vision for some time, and every day it gets nearer and nearer. This vision stems back to the last decade, when the Baja Beach Club began chipping customers with NFC capabilities as who…

Jul 16, 2014

Terrorists will drive us towards digital identities

As I travel the world, one thing unfolds, The passport queue. Surely, there is a better way to check it’s you. As here we stand, book in hand, waiting for the eye of the security guy. To check my face matches my race, and stamp that I may camp in their place. So I give…

May 9, 2014

AML prevention lies in digital identities: the new form of money

After yesterday’s post about KYC, PEPs and AML, someone said: “so what’s the point Chris?” @FSClub not quite sure of the point you are making here. Money L bad. Hard to catch. Harder if not in official channels. It was ever thus? — Julian Lee (@JulianDDLee) May 8, 2014 The point of yesterday’s blog was…

May 8, 2014

Money laundering, KYC and a PEP talk

I have recently spent a lot of time talking about KYC (Know Your Client), AML (Anti Money Laundering, often confused with ALM which is Asset and Liability Management), Client Onboarding, PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) and SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports). It’s all wrapped up in financial crime, compliance, legal, audit and operational risk. The core of…

May 8, 2014

Money laundering, KYC and a PEP talk

Apr 15, 2014

Give merchants the finger: now you can with PayPal

We've all been saying that it's only a while before we pay for everything with a biometric, as mentioned in last weeks blog: The Age of the Password is over. Bringing this one step nearer to reality is PayPal. With the release of the Samsung Galaxy S5 last Friday, you can now pay with a fingerprint….