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- CHIPS Network Successfully Migrates To ISO 20022
- Spain Consults On Incoming Digitalisation Regulation
- Paytm Payments Bank CEO Resigns Amid Compliance Issues
- Mastercard, Singapore Central Bank Sign New Cybersecurity MoU
- UK’s Confirmation Of Payee Hits 2bn Checks Milestone
- Crédit Agricole, Worldline Joint Venture To Be Called CAWL
- New Visa+ P2P Service Goes Live With PayPal, Venmo, Other US Platforms
- Spain To Create 'Financial Defence Authority'
CHIPS Network Successfully Migrates To ISO 20022
The CHIPS network in the US, the largest private-sector high-value clearing and settlement system in the world, has successfully migrated to the ISO 20022 messaging format.
The migration took place on Monday (April 8), with CHIPS releasing 555,345 payments with a total value of $1.81trn on its first day of operations.
The Clearing House, operator of CHIPS, said that widespread adoption of the ISO 20022 will enhance payments processing efficiency by allowing participants to send more structured data with each transaction.
As covered by Vixio, ISO 20022 allows transactions to be sent with up to 9,000 characters of additional information, including “rich data tags” such as ultimate debtor, ultimate creditor and payment purpose.
“ISO 20022 is the foundation for financial institutions to work smarter and faster, leading to greater operational efficiency, improved data analytics and compliance, new opportunities for innovation and enhanced customer experience,” said Pat Antonacci, chief customer experience officer at Swift.
“The Clearing House’s successful migration is a significant step towards the US realising these possibilities.”
Spain Consults On Incoming Digitalisation Regulation
The Spanish government has launched a public consultation on a preliminary draft law and draft royal decree on the digitalisation and modernisation of the financial sector.
The consultation's aims include the transposition of EU directives including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation.
The consultation also looks at proposed rules to address various national initiatives such as financial digitisation, relating to the digital operational resilience of the Spanish payment system and the financial sandbox in Spain, among other things.
The consultation closes on April 30 and seeks feedback on the problems that these initiatives solve, the timings of their adoption, the objectives of the regulations and possible alternative solutions.
Paytm Payments Bank CEO Resigns Amid Compliance Issues
The CEO of Paytm Payments Bank Ltd has resigned as the firm continues its break-up from parent company One 97 Communications Ltd (OCL).
In a statement submitted to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), OCL said that Surinder Chawla, CEO and managing director of Paytm Bank, tendered his resignation on Monday (April 8).
The statement went on to say that Chawla had chosen to leave the company due to “personal reasons” and to “explore better career prospects”.
On March 1, 2024, OCL announced that almost all agreements between itself and Paytm Bank have been “terminated”.
Since January this year, when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered a shutdown of Paytm Bank due to “persistent non-compliance”, the OCL banking arm has been in a state of limbo.
However, it did manage to retain access to the UPI instant payments system for its customers via a new third-party application provider (TPAP) permission.
Mastercard, Singapore Central Bank Sign New Cybersecurity MoU
The Monetary Authority of Singapore and Mastercard have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation in cybersecurity.
The partnership aims to further cement the collaboration between MAS and Mastercard in bilateral information sharing of cyber threat intelligence to raise situational awareness in the financial services sector.
“With a constantly evolving cyber threat landscape and rapid digitalisation of financial services globally, a close public-private partnership between key financial sector players is essential to engendering cyber resilience of the financial ecosystem," said Vincent Loy, assistant director of the MAS.
"I am glad that this MoU between MAS and Mastercard will contribute towards this outcome and help advance cybersecurity capacity building.”
The bilateral agreement will focus on joint analysis of the latest cyber threats affecting the financial services sector, to produce actionable insights and recommendations on possible countermeasures.
UK’s Confirmation Of Payee Hits 2bn Checks Milestone
The UK’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) addressing system has now performed more than 2bn checks on prospective bank transfers.
Since the launch of CoP in 2020, more than 100 organisations have implemented the system, with more than 1.9m checks being performed every day.
In 2024, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is also aiming to onboard more than 350 additional organisations to CoP.
Pay.UK, the independent, non-for-profit operator of the UK’s retail payments system, said the 2bn mark is a “significant milestone” and shows the “key role” that CoP plays in fighting fraud.
In the first six months of 2023, Pay.UK said fraud rates fell by 2 percent compared with the same period the previous year.
Authorised push payment (APP) fraud, which is specifically targeted by CoP, has also seen a 1 percent fall compared with the same period the year before.
Crédit Agricole, Worldline Joint Venture To Be Called CAWL
Crédit Agricole and Worldline have announced that CAWL will be the name of their newly formed joint venture.
CAWL aims to combine service and proximity to offer merchants payment options adapted to the specificities of their sectors.
The joint venture will offer omnichannel products with dedicated sales teams and expertise for each sector for larger merchants. It will also aim to deploy an all-in-one package for and has an offering for smaller merchants and professionals from 2025.
“CAWL aims to be a major player in payments for all merchants in France, with an offer combining service, proximity and high technology, drawing on the strengths of Crédit Agricole and Worldline," said Meriem Echcherfi, managing director of CAWL.
"We also aim to be a leader in innovation by creating integrated offerings that significantly increase added value for merchants and, by extension, their own customers."
New Visa+ P2P Service Goes Live With PayPal, Venmo, Other US Platforms
Visa+, a new way to send and receive peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, is now live with PayPal and Venmo in the US.
As covered by Vixio last year, Visa+ allows users across a range of P2P apps to send money to each other instantly without using a card to bridge between different platforms.
Instead of using a card, Visa+ users must set up a personalised payment address — similar to a social media handle — which is then linked to their PayPal or Venmo.
Visa believes that Visa+ will provide the building blocks for interoperability across the real-time payments landscape in the US, helping to connect the major closed-loop P2P platforms.
Going forward, Visa also said that Current and Western Union will join the scheme, in addition to other business-to-consumer-focused (B2C) platforms.
Spain To Create 'Financial Defence Authority'
The Spanish government has introduced a bill that will create a new Financial Client Defence Authority, in an effort to improve consumer protection and financial inclusion.
The bill is tasked with “creating the independent administrative authority for the defence of financial customers for the out-of-court settlement of disputes between financial institutions and their customers”.
Through the authority, Spanish consumers will now be able to submit their complaints free of charge to a single body.
The bill sets out the objectives and scope of activities of the new authority. It details the entities that may be subject to complaints, including supervised entities, fintechs, crypto-asset service providers and consumer lending services, regardless of which authority supervises them.
