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According to the Aite Group, 47 percent of Americans experienced financial identity theft in 2020. The group’s report, U.S. Identity Theft: The Stark Reality, found that losses from identity theft cases cost $502.5 billion in 2019 and increased 42 percent to $712.4 billion in 2020. The group explains that the huge increase was fueled by the high rate of unemployment identity theft during the pandemic, as increased and extended unemployment benefits made the sector an attractive target for fraudsters.
Losses are forecast to increase again in 2021 to $721.3 billion.

From Facts + Statistics: Identity theft and cybercrime | III.

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Hardly surprising, when you note that over 70% of COVID scams include identity theft or fraud.

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Bank account and loan fraud has soared in the UK during the pandemic as criminals sought to target British businesses and consumers in the lockdown and exploit government support schemes.

From UK bank account and loan fraud soars in pandemic | Financial Times.

Experian also said that fraudulent openings for savings accounts were three times the rate in the previous quarter, and five times when compared with the same quarter last year. Eduardo Castro, head of identity and fraud at Experian UK&I, said there had been a “substantial increase in fraudulent activity”.

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China’s largest tech company, is using facial recognition to stop kids from gaming after bedtime. Announced in a press release yesterday, Tencent said its new technology would require players to confirm their identity via facial recognition algorithm in order to keep playing mobile games past 10 pm. It’s just the latest step Chinese companies are taking to conform (and stay ahead of) China’s tightening regulations concerning when and how underage people play games.

From Tencent is now using facial recognition to stop children in China from gaming all night | PC Gamer.

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Insider reports that Amazon’s Project Santos is working on the point-of-sale (POS) solution to compete with the likes of industry giants… the solution designed for third-party retailers will process transactions both online and in store, and offer technological capabilities that allow for data analytics around inventory and other business functions. It will also offer Amazon checkout options and will connect to Prime services, Flex delivery and the palm identification system.

From Amazon developing POS to compete with PayPal, Shopify.

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it’s not a huge leap to imagine Apple offering identity verification-as-a-service. Verifying users’ identity is a key requirement not just for financial services but also age-restricted products, “sharing economy” platforms like Uber and Airbnb, healthcare services, and some ecommerce sites.

From Apple Adds IDs to Wallet, Could “Apple KYC” Be Next? – by Jason Mikula – Fintech Business Weekly:

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An absolutely fascinating case in point is El Salvador. The national identity number (“the DUI”) was used by fraudsters to steal money during the roll-out of the “Chivo” Bitcoin wallet. The DUI numbers of many people are public, including the lists of recently-deceased people and their DUIs that are published by insurance companies. Why? To stop fraud, of course.

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Ecommerce payments have lower barriers to entry than point of sale payments because they don’t require merchants to upgrade their physical infrastructure in order to accept new payment methods. This means open banking payments can be integrated into the ecommerce customer journey relatively easily.

From The future of ecommerce payments: 4 reasons why open banking is ready to challenge card dominance:

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76 percent of currently unbanked consumers say they have had either a checking or savings account at a bank at some point in the past, and 33 percent say they have had one in the past year.

From Banking the Unbanked Requires Raising Trust and Awareness. For the Underbanked, Better Service Means Payments Innovation – Morning Consult:

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Our results demonstrate that Chinese investors played a dominant role in the Bitcoin price formation before the ban, and that their influence has not significantly decreased after the shutdown of Chinese trading platforms. Aiming to explain our findings, we provide strong evidence that the crackdown on Bitcoin trading has not been effective as Chinese investors continue to purchase Bitcoin using the stablecoin Tether instead of Chinese yuan.

From How effective is China’s cryptocurrency trading ban? – ScienceDirect:

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