Mobile Banking may cause Fraud and Money Laundering
Recently, media discussed the threat posed by mobile banking from a personal BlackBerry or iPhone. It appeared that mobile banking might cause threats to financial institutions because criminals look for a possibility to hide their money laundering or fraud crimes behind handheld devices. It should be noted that handheld devices are relatively anonymous.
According to Steve Solberg, Senior Product Manager for Fraud at Fortent, the risk and compliance specialist, moving from cash and checks to electronic payments and now to mobile banking is a very rapid change in the payments industry, and it not only provides increased convenience and value for customers but also present new elements of risk and fraud for them.
It is projected that the mobile banking channel will explode in the next 5 years. In the United States, it is predicted to increase from 1.1 million customers in 2007 to 42.3 million in 2012.
Mobile initiatives may take off even quicker in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Brazil, as companies there tend to offer everything through mobile devices – services from payments to stock trading.
However, it should be taken into consideration that mobile banking is still in its infancy, and therefore banks are working to protect themselves and their customers from possible money laundering.