Recently, special guest Theresa Kananen joined EverC experts Melissa Sutherland and Maya Shabi to delve into some hot topics on the minds of those in the payments industry as they attempt to maneuver the ecommerce threat landscape in 2024.
Theresa is a partner with Arnall Golden Gregory LLP and co-chair of its payments systems practice. Melissa, EverC VP Risk & Strategy, is a sought-after speaker and industry thought leader, while Maya, EverC Threat Detection Strategist, has extensive expertise in counter-terrorism, risk assessment, and mitigation analysis.
4 Key Takeaways
Here are four key takeaways along with some quotes from our expert panel to give you a flavor for the webinar.
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Tech vs. People: Which Is Better at Disrupting Illicit Supply Chains?
Our experts agreed that in most cases it really takes a combined approach that uses technology as the first line of defense, then further investigation and oversight by humans to successfully disrupt illicit activity. This is because the payments ecosystem is very complex and also because bad actors are very in tune with the limitations of technology. Maya elaborated: “Where the tech solutions do present gaps, that's where humans can pick up the slack, and that's where that hybrid approach really comes into play.” As an example, Theresa mentioned onboarding of merchants. “People love it. It’s fast and frictionless. But it’s also, if you think about it, maybe too easy to spoof after a while,” she said.
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How to Get on a Regulator’s Bad Side
Regardless of the specific regulator or their personality, Theresa said she sees those in the payments ecosystem ending up in the “crosshairs of regulators” in two types of situations. The first is when they challenge the regulator in a way the regulator doesn't like. The second is when a regulator thinks “you’re asleep at the wheel and colluding. She explained, “There’s a certain amount of being asleep at the switch that the FTC will view as colluding, because you decided to take that nap in their view, as opposed to, ‘I was just distracted; I have a massive portfolio to manage.’”
Looking to go deeper into this year’s ecommerce trends? Download our Trends Report
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Friction and the Disconnect Between Regulators and Payments Industry Players
Our experts conceded that friction is an area of contention between businesses and regulators. Businesses want little or no friction to get customers before their competition lands them, while regulators don’t necessarily always want vetting processes to be so easy. Theresa provided this example: “The CFPB did a big investigation, just information gathering, targeting many of the big Buy Now, Pay Later companies, then they published a report, and the upshot of it was, ‘We think this is too easy. We think people are getting into it too easily, and maybe they don’t really understand what it means.”
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Shadow Connections for Moving Money
Our experts discussed how the increase in globalization and interconnectivity has made it easier for criminal networks to slip through the cracks and hide their nefarious activities. Along this topic, Maya issued a challenge to those in the payments industry: “I want to challenge everybody to think a little bit more critically and really connect it to where businesses or networks of front companies are masquerading as something else to move money for Iran-linked entities. So, it's not just about that espionage against the foreign adversary, but it also can be applied to manipulating the payments ecosystem, building layers upon layers of shadow networks, moving money across borders in different currencies and virtual assets. They’re selling and moving different product lines…it’s such a connected ecosystem, and it’s so difficult to root out what is real and what is false, especially as we have more advancing technology.”
For more hot topics and in-depth insights revealed during our latest webinar, we encourage you to watch the full video.
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