The G20's plan to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, more transparent and inclusive could increase fraud and money laundering, warns a new report.
Since 2021, the G20 has been pursuing a “Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments” which focuses on reducing the cost and enhancing speed, access and transparency of payments across borders.
The Future of Financial Intelligence Sharing (FFIS) is now warning that there "appears to be a lack of joined-up policy thinking" between this effort and economic crime security considerations.
Faster payments, says the report, threaten to remove a fundamental part of existing processes for ensuring economic crime security: the opportunity for transaction screening and recall of payments after instruction, but prior to cross-border settlement.
Neither the original G20 targets, nor the 2023 consolidated progress report on the roadmap, nor any aspect of BIS's “Project Nexus” technical exercise to enable instant cross-border payments, include any assessment of, or mitigation against, the increased risk of fraud and associated money laundering inherent in faster cross-border payments, says the FFIS report.
FFIS calls for ‘economic crime security by design’ to be integrated at the design stage within the payments reform policy-development process.
This requires a "change in institutional culture within G20 institutions most involved in payments reform to embrace the concept that economic crime security is a shared responsibility".
Read the report
Learn more about payments at NextGen Nordics on the 23 April 2024.