The Federal Reserve Board has announced it will conduct a study that seeks to quantify the amount of payment fraud in the United States and what that fraud costs companies and consumers, the agency announced yesterday.
Boston Consulting Group has been hired to conduct the study, which should take up to six months before results are released. From the Fed:
The study will systematically and objectively measure payment fraud and identify and provide insight on payment security vulnerabilities. The Federal Reserve expects the results of the study will help inform its ongoing collaboration with the industry to enhance end-to-end payment security.
The Fed released a paper last year: Strategies for Improving the U.S. Payment System: Federal Reserve Next Steps in the Payments Improvement Journey, and has even started up a “community” to exchange information on payment-related best practices.
“The vast number of participants and complex nature of the payments industry make it challenging to determine where the greatest opportunities exist for significantly mitigating fraud,” said Ken Montgomery, the Federal Reserve’s payments security strategy leader and chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “We hope to bring greater insight to the challenge with a comprehensive view of payment fraud data and payment security vulnerabilities that will help inform next steps for ongoing industry collaboration.”
