BNZ And Westpac Awarded For Excellence In Risk Managment

BNZ And Westpac Awarded For Excellence In Risk Managment

Two of 20 Financial Institutions Honoured with Visa LEADER Awards for Outstanding Risk Management in Asia Pacific, Central Europe, Middle East and Africa at Visa Security Summit 2013

Auckland, May 30, 2013 – Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today recognised the contributions of Bank of New Zealand and Westpac at the Visa APCEMEA[1] 2013 Security Summit. They were two of only 20 financial institutions to receive a Visa LEADER Award, and the only banks in Australasia to be recognised for their contribution to fraud and risk management. The Visa LEADER awards were established to promote best practice in risk management standards across the financial services industry.

The LEADER Award winners are selected based on quantitative and qualitative criteria that included fraud to sales ratios; authentication measures; data security; PCI-DSS compliance; risk initiative and innovation as well as fraud investigation. The LEADER Awards are divided into two categories: “Best Issuing Institution[2]” and “Best Acquiring Institution[3]”.

Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) received “The Best Issuing Institution in Australasia” award for investing heavily in innovation to ensure that ecommerce fraud losses are contained to record low levels. BNZ’s in-depth analysis of fraud activity also resulted in minimal counterfeit and stolen losses. This is the second consecutive year BNZ has won this category of the LEADER Awards.

Westpac Banking Corporation Australia received “The Best Acquiring Institution in Australasia” award for actively engaging in PCI strategies, consistently taking an industry leadership position in response to compromise events, identifying industry wide threats and escalating and promoting industry remediation.

At this year’s Summit Visa introduced a Special Award category to recognise the financial institution which has most significantly contributed to the advancement of risk management standards in APCEMEA. The Special Award was presented to SMCC Japan for lowering regional fraud levels with the implementation of proactive fraud monitoring tools and risk operations on behalf of 50 members of the VJA Group. SMCC was also lauded for playing an active role in driving industry-wide projects – from product innovation to fraud risk management – and leading the building of a secure mobile payment environment in Japan with its “Mobile payWave ECO system” with Japanese mobile carriers and payment vendors, and developing Japan’s mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) risk guidelines.

“We have worked hand-in-hand with the payments community to harden the Visa system against potential attacks, but we must be constantly vigilant and avoid complacency. Even with global fraud rates near historic lows, we must adapt faster than those that might seek to do damage to the stakeholders in the payment ecosystem. With new players, technology and consumers having greater access to the internet, the potential exposure to risk has increased,” said Ian McKindley, Visa’s Director of Country Risk Management for Australia and New Zealand.

McKindley continued, “We are working closely with our partners and stakeholders to address this changing landscape, and the LEADER Awards aims to recognise the financial institutions that have put in place innovative data security technologies and fraud prevention strategies to keep payments safe for consumers. We hope that the LEADER Awards will encourage the financial services industry to continue the advancement of risk management practices to better secure the future of payments.”

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