European Payments Council Seeks Help In Tracking Fraud

The European Payments Council (EPC) wants to hear from service providers with the expertise to oversee a multi-nation alarm system designed to cut down on payments fraud.

The council this week issued a request for proposals seeking an outsourced provider for a new malware information sharing system for the Single Euro Payments Area, otherwise known as SEPA. The council says it is seeing a rise in payments fraud and scams, and needs a platform to provide real-time fraud information sharing and direct browser access to all participants in various payment plans.

The EPC is a nonprofit that lobbies for banks and other payment service providers as they integrate new payments technology, among other issues. The council was the driving force behind establishing the SEPA.

“With the advent of Sepa instant payments, it became clear that the existing process for prioritising payment blocking requests related to fraud (through a bi-lateral email exchange process) is insufficient for contacting the appropriate persons related to payment blocking requests in case of fraudulent transactions in a timely manner,” the EPC says in its RFP.

“In addition, the ECB/Eurosystem, as overseer of the SEPA payment schemes, already recommended the EPC develop an early warning-sharing system for specific fraud cases, towards relevant scheme participants; and broadcast fraud-related information towards all scheme participants, for example through the publication of quarterly qualitative dashboards.”

The commission says it is seeking a “reliable independent service provider” to whom it will outsource the maintenance and management of the malware information sharing platform, or MISP instance.

The MISP is expected to be online by February of next year after three months of pilot testing. Interested and eligible vendors are asked to submit an application no later than May 28.

EPC Director General Etienne Goosse spoke with Karen Webster in a PYMNTS interview earlier this month about the council, its background and its challenges.