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It seems unusual to compare the payments industry with the drug trade, but the two may offer equal opportunity for motivated criminals, reports American Banker, a Collections & Credit Risk sister publication.
"A Secret Service agent told us that organized crime is spending as much time on payments as on drugs," Thomas Swidarski, president and CEO at Diebold Inc., told audience members during a keynote address last week at the ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum in Las Vegas. "Cyber threats are real ... and attacking payments."
Chuck Somers, the North Canton, Ohio-based ATM maker's vice president of ATM security and global professional services, says criminals are interested in payments largely because it is a "low-impact" offense; jail time and violence are relatively low, especially compared with the distinctly less cushy lifestyle of criminals convicted of drug-related crimes.
Swidarski, who spent much of his talk discussing Diebold's security services and its ATM innovations at banks outside the United States, said some international banks are bringing biometric technology to consumers as a way to verify identities at ATMs.
"We see thumbprints, fingerprints" and even a palm-print scanner deployed at the ATMs of a Brazilian bank, he said. "In the U.S., biometrics are still mostly employee-facing," but in countries like Brazil, banks that adopt such technology win public recognition for "thought-leadership" and "being innovative in the community." The ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum was sponsored by SourceMedia Inc., which publishes American Banker and Collections & Credit Risk.
