Visa conducts Annual Risk and Security Conference in Bangladesh

Visa, the global leader in payments technology, held its annual Visa Risk and Security Conference for its clients and partners in the Bangladesh market recently. Held at The Westin Dhaka, the conference had more than 100 stakeholders of the country’s payments fraternity, including senior business, risk management, Information Technology and Information Security executives from banks. International experts from Visa shared global best practices and key insights on critical aspects of digital payments like cybersecurity, system vulnerabilities mobile payment frauds.

Speaking of the summit, Vipin Surelia, Head, Risk Services, India & South Asia said, “Our annual Bangladesh Risk and Security Conference is an interactive platform to engage, discuss and learn from global best practices in the world of payment security and risk management. The World Economic Forum identifies large-scale cyberattacks as the 5th biggest risk facing the world in 2019[1]. Emerging markets are more vulnerable to such attacks and need to take proactive steps to identify, and mitigate risks and reduce fraud incidents. Visa continuously engages with its partners and the regulators in the country to fight fraud and create better payment infrastructure.

For over 30 years, Visa has played a vital role in enabling digital payments in Bangladesh. With the Visa Risk and Security Conference, we want to reiterate how essential it is for a growing market like Bangladesh to have a risk framework and an industry agreed Security Roadmap backed by strong security infrastructure to aid and accelerate this growth.”

Mr. Md. Mahbubur Rahman Alam, Associate Professor, Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, was the guest speaker at the event. He emphasized on the importance of IT Governance and need for Board and Senior Management to be actively involved in cyber security. One of the key themes of his address was collaboration and he suggested setting up of Information Sharing and Analysis Centers and an Institute similar to Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) like Reserve Bank of India has, to drive cyber security initiatives in Bangladesh. He also urged the participants to be prepared for eventualities and laid stress on hiring trained professionals in IT and Information Security.

In recent times, Bangladesh has witnessed considerable growth in digital payments. According to a recent BIBM survey, non-cash payments through various channels is growing at around 53%, as more consumers shop online and use credit and debit cards at retail outlets. Visa’s security and risk experts stressed that as more sophisticated payment methods emerge, it is important to have robust security infrastructure and for banks to ensure that the data and transactions of their customers are protected at all times. The summit highlighted the need for trained and skilled IT professionals who can identify and deal with potential risks in order to fight the continuous battle with fraud.

Payment security and fraud management is a critical area of focus for Visa to build a safe, secure and reliable global payments environment. Its tools like VAA (Visa Advanced Authorization), VRM (Visa Risk Management), CyberSource Decision Manager, Visa Customer Authentication Service, Visa Secure etc.   that help banks monitor, detect and fight fraud at every step of the transaction cycle.