Announcements

The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) in collaboration with The Institute of Banking Studies (IBS) organized an Information Security Forum on “Securing Payments in the Cyber World” which was held on Sunday, 16th of November, 2014 at Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel. The Forum’s objectives were to highlight the growing importance of information security in the banking and financial industry and to raise the awareness of Cyber Security risks through various discussions, presentation, research and best practices in this field. The Forum focused on three domains, namely Securing Payments Systems, Cyber Laws and Regulation, and the latest Researches and Trends in Online and eCrime, Cyber Security and Fraud Prevention.

Organizing this forum was to protect consumers, governments and the private sector in particular banking and financial firms against the increasing threats on payments systems.

The forum opening was led by the keynote speech of Mrs. Hana A. Razzouqi - Executive Director for the Information Technology and Banking Operations Sector in CBK, where she welcomed the GCC and local participants, and shared with the audience the latest developments in online payments regulatory and compliance both in Kuwait and the GCC region. After which speakers from leading international organizations contributed to the Forum starting with Prof. Edelman from Harvard University who discussed the subject of Bitcoin, electronic currency, and non-traditional payment vehicles. He explained the criteria that could be used in evaluating electronic payment services, which should include reliability, cost, speed, prevention of abuse, and how it could be regulated. He then profiled the existing systems and contrasted them with new payments methods such as Bitcoins and Apple Pay, and he concluded and explained the factors that make the new payments service successful.

Mr. Von Rössing from (ISACA) The Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) which defines the roles of information systems governance, security, audit, outlined in his presentation the way in which Europe approaches cybersecurity as a challenge for legislation, regulation and related governance issues. Noting that these approaches specifically reflect on the financial sector as a typical target. He then explained how Europe deals with cybersecurity from strategic, tactical and operational levels.

Representing Forrester Research, Mr. Cser presented the topic of how to handle mobile fraud he first started by explaining the trends in fraud management as well as the architecture and classification of fraud management. Mr. Csar then elaborated on behavioural analytics that could be used in fraud management. In addition, Mr. Cser discussed Mobile fraud management and concluded by providing recommendations and predictions from Forrester in this regards.

Following that the speaker from the World Bank Mr. Natarajan’s presented on legal, regulatory and oversight arrangements for securing payments in the Cyber World. He outlined the public policy objectives in payment systems, as well as the ongoing trends in payment systems and implications from a security perspective. Mr. Natarajan concluded by clarifying that mitigation of cyber-security related risks are central to achieving public policy objectives in payment and settlement systems.

Ms. Stephanie Czák the speaker from the European Central Bank (ECB) discussed the European experience of retail payments security and focused on how the euro-system approaches innovation in the retail payments from an oversight perspective. She also highlighted the importance of the provision of security in those payments. Additionally, she explained the European Forum for the security of retail payments (SecuRe Pay) which resulted from a joint cooperation of supervisors and overseers to facilitate common knowledge and understanding with respect to safety of electronic payment services and instruments provided within the European Union

Among the local participants in the ISFORUM Mr. Abdulla Al-Ajmi - General Manager of the Shared Electronic Banking Services Company - KNET, discussed measures of securing payments within the GCC Net. He started by explaining the Roles KNET has with GCC NET, and how KNET helps Kuwaiti banks in the process of switching the transactions through GCC NET, highlighting the main benefits of the GCC NET and how it helps GCC banks and Customers. Mr. Al-Ajmi then elaborated on the main security aspects in fraud prevention methods that are required by these networks.

CBK Speaker Mr. Majed Al-Adwani highlighted the importance of organizations to strengthen their operational risk management posture in light of the evolving Cyber Threat environment. He gave a brief on the emerging threat landscape, followed by an explanation as to why conventional Information Security and Business Continuity practices are no longer enough. He then discussed some international Cyber Resilience related frameworks and ended with a brief on the latest Cyber Resilience preparedness exercises that were done in the USA and UK.

Forum participants were specialists from the GCC Central Banks, GCC networks, in addition to local banks and local and governmental institutions.

For speakers presentations please click here .