MVLCO India – one of India’s leading consultancy firms on payment card related services, together with LankaClear – the operator of LankaPay national payment network, recently conducted a breakfast briefing on ‘Payment Card Fraud Risk Management’ held at Hotel Galadari.
The keynote address at the session was delivered by Mr. Makarand Lonkar, Director – MVLCO who counts for over 30 years of experience in consulting and advisory engagements on risk based internal audits, enterprise risk management and more recently with fraud management in financial services sector. This session was followed by a discussion on the same topic with an eminent panel of speakers consisting of Mr. Ananda Jayalath, Assistant Governor – Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Mr. Makarand Lonkar, Director – MVLCO, Mr. Channa de Silva, GM/CEO – LankaClear and Mr. Kaushik Pandey, Lead QSA – SISA Information Security Pvt Ltd. The session was moderated by Mr. Deleepa Lathsara, CEO of TechCERT.
The objective of this breakfast briefing was to apprise the Heads of Cards of and Card Centre managers of banks and financial institutions on evolving threat landscape related to payment card industry. The focus was to create awareness in the country’s financial sector to respond proactively to the emerging risks and frauds. Representatives from 13 banks and financial institutions attended this unique session and gained valuable insights on the subject. It was announced that Central Bank is supporting LankaClear to implement a fraud monitoring and management system to cover interbank transactions via the LankaPay payments network to ensure financial sector stability.
Earlier this year, LankaClear under the patronage of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka announced the launch of National Card Scheme (NCS) to fulfill a long felt need for a locally operated card scheme. This scheme would offer benefits to card issuing banks and their merchants alike through substantially lower tariffs in addition to the possibility of tailoring card products to cater to specific market needs. The NCS was implemented in partnership with JCB International of Japan who is one of the leading members of EMVCO, which is a consortium of international card schemes. Transactions carried under this scheme would be far more cost effective yet consists of a globally accepted alternative to the existing card schemes operated in the country. A several participants have already come on board as pilot issuers including – MCB Bank and Siyapatha Finance. On the other hand, Cargills Bank, Seylan Bank and Commercial Bank have joined this national initiative as the initial acquirers by connecting their POS network to accept NCS cards, while large ATM service providers such as BOC, Sampath Bank, Commercial Bank and HNB already on board for accepting NCS cards at their ATMs. The card scheme is implemented on LankaPay network, which is complied with the highest security of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI – DSS).