Central Banks Form Task Force on Payments Fraud

A committee of the world's major central banks said on Friday it has launched a task force to examine cyber security in cross-border banking and to ensure interbank payments are protected.

"Recent incidents of cyber fraud are of significant concern for the central banking community, and we are working to make sure there are adequate checks and balances in place at each stage of the payments process," Benoit Coeure, chairman of the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, part of the Bank for International Settlements, said in a statement.

Coeure, also a European Central Bank executive board member, added it was too soon to predict the result of the work that had just begun.

The Basel, Switzerland-based committee will decide how to proceed based on a review of current practices, he said.

Reuters reported the formation of the task force, noting it was prompted by the February cyber heist of $81 million from Bangladesh Bank's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

That hacking incident exposed vulnerabilities in the global wholesale payments infrastructure, and in the messaging network called SWIFT, that banks and states rely upon for daily funding.