On Friday, the UK House of Commons Treasury Committee published their report on the consumer perspective of economic crime. I’ve frequently addressed this topic in my research, as well as here on Bentham’s Gaze, so I’m pleased to see several recommendations of the committee match what myself and colleagues have proposed. In other respects, the report could have gone further, so as well as discussing the positive aspects of the report, I would also like to suggest what more could be done to reduce economic crime and protect its victims.
Irrevocable payments are the wrong default
Transfers between UK bank accounts will generally use the Faster Payment System (FPS), where money will immediately show up in the recipient account. FPS transfers cannot be revoked, even in the case of fraud. This characteristic protects banks because if fraudulently obtained funds leave the banking system, the bank receiving the transfer has no obligation to reimburse the victim.
In contrast, the clearing system for paper cheques permits payments to be revoked for a few days after the funds appeared in the recipient account, should there have been a fraud. This period allows customers to quickly make use of funds they receive, while still giving a window of opportunity for banks and customers to identify and prevent fraud. There’s no reason why this same revocation window could not be applied to fully electronic payment systems like FPS.
In my submissions to consultations on how to prevent push payment scams, I argued that irrevocable payments are the wrong default, and transfers should be possible to reverse in cases of fraud. The same argument applies to consumer-oriented cryptocurrencies like Libra. I’m pleased to see that the Treasury Committee agrees and they have recommended that when a customer sends money to an account for the first time, that transfer be revocable for 24 hours.
Introducing Confirmation of Payee, finally
The banking industry has been planning on launching the Confirmation of Payee system to check if the name of the recipient of a transfer matches what the customer sending money thinks. The committee is clearly frustrated with delays on deploying this system, first promised for September 2018 but since slipped to March 2020. Confirmation of Payee will be a helpful tool for customers to help avoid certain frauds. Still, I’m pleased the committee also recognise it’s limitations and that the “onus will always be on financial firms to develop further methods and technologies to keep up with fraudsters.” It is for this reason that I argued that a bank showing a customer a Confirmation of Payee mismatch should not be a sufficient condition to hold customers liable for fraud, and the push-payment scam reimbursement scheme is wrong to do so. It doesn’t look like the committee is asking for the situation to be changed though.
Continue reading UK Parliament on protecting consumers from economic crime