"Mobile wallet" requires a "firewall"
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to accelerate the development of the digital economy, promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and create a digital industrial cluster with international competitiveness. As an important part of the digital economy, the "tentacles" of mobile payment are extending to multiple places and scenarios, promoting a high degree of integration between digital scenes and people's lives.
Mobile payment security is one of the keys to the healthy development of the digital economy. Industry insiders said that the birth and popularization of mobile payment not only gives people great convenience in daily life and travel, but also brings many problems related to personal information and property security. Mobile payment security requires governments, businesses and consumers to work together to build a solid "firewall" against fraud.
Digital life scenarios are increasing
Recently, China UnionPay released the "2022 Mobile Payment Security Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), showing that 77.5% of mobile phone users will use mobile payment every day, and there are nearly 11 commonly used scenarios, which is a further increase compared with 2021. As of June 2022, the scale of online payment users in China reached 6 million, an increase of 9,04 over December 2021, and the overall market coverage of China's mobile payment ranked first in the world.
With the further popularization of smart devices, mobile payment has quickly occupied the market with its fast and convenient characteristics and has become one of the important payment methods. Mobile payment refers to shopping transactions, bill payments, inter-account transfers and other activities carried out through mobile terminal devices such as mobile phones and PDAs, with the help of mobile networks and mobile payment systems. In 2007, with the rise of smart phones, the Internet developed in the direction of mobile Internet, and mobile payment obtained more novel and diversified application scenarios such as online shopping, social transfer, public utility payment, and community group buying.
According to the report, the three basic scenarios around residents' daily life, "shops, convenience stores and restaurants", "small vendors, vegetable markets, fruit stores" and "water, electricity, coal and network fees", have become the occasions where mobile payment occurs the most, with 81.2%, 73.1% and 74.1% of respondents respectively saying that they will use mobile payment in these three scenarios, further increasing from 78%, 68% and 71% last year.
"Mobile payment breaks the time and space limitations of traditional payment, helping users pay anytime, anywhere. Especially for some elderly or mobility groups, mobile payment allows them to no longer need to go out of the house to buy the products they want through a mobile phone, pay for the utility network fees, etc. Mobile payment also facilitates the management of their accounts by payment users and receiving merchants, and users can easily check their account balances and transfer records. Jones Lang LaSalle Greater China Chief Economist and Director of Research Pang Ming, said.
It is worth noting that in terms of payment security, the number of unsafe behaviors of users has decreased significantly. According to the survey, the average user surveyed had 2022.1 unsafe habits in 2, compared to about 2021 unsafe habits per capita in 2. The incidence of bad behaviors such as "all payment passwords are the same", "QR codes with preferential promotions will be tried to scan", "bank cards are not removed when changing mobile phones, and sensitive information retained by them is not deleted" has decreased significantly. According to the survey, in the face of mobile payment security issues, 37.1% of respondents are very confident in their ability to protect themselves in mobile payment security, 47.3% of respondents are somewhat confident, and 15.6% are cautious.
Zhou Maohua, macro researcher of the financial market department of China Everbright Bank, said that at present, mobile payment still faces some security problems and challenges, the more prominent thing is that personal information and privacy security are facing challenges, and some young and elderly groups who are not deeply involved in the world and have an information gap are vulnerable to online fraud; At the same time, due to the fast speed of funds and the concealment of criminals' methods, it is difficult to trace the source of funds.
The payment security situation is grim
With the rapid development of mobile payment and the convenience of residents' lives, the people's trust, use and dependence on mobile payment have been continuously enhanced. The "Report" mentioned that some criminals have found "business opportunities" in the general direction of universal popularization of mobile payment. 67.1% of respondents said they had encountered telecom fraud, 22.6% said that their property had been damaged, and the proportion of those who suffered damage increased by 2021.8% compared to 6. Some groups are at higher risk of mobile payments and are more likely to fall victim to online fraud.
Students are the most likely to be targeted, with 34.7% of respondents having provided sensitive personal information and been defrauded to obtain free services and offers. The second is the "post-80s" and "post-90s" groups, which have a low awareness of personal protection and are more likely to be fooled in the face of profit-seeking fraud such as "point exchange fraud". "Young people under the age of 25 have poor awareness of personal protection when using mobile phones and bank cards, and the number of bad habits is higher than average, and they are more likely to trust others in terms of personal information protection." Relevant business personnel of China UnionPay said in an interview with reporters.
According to Wang Pengbo, chief analyst of Broadcom Consulting, although some young people are more familiar with new things such as the Internet, they lack in-depth financial knowledge and do not have a deep understanding of society, so they are more likely to lack awareness of the safe use of bank cards and are more likely to be deceived.
Pang believes that all kinds of groups with high risk of mobile payment have certain commonalities, such as low vigilance and weak protection of sensitive personal information; Failure to properly grasp and handle the relationship between security and convenience when using mobile payment methods; Insufficient self-protection awareness and prevention and response capabilities for mobile payment risks combined with profit-seeking fraud and telecom fraud.
Experts pointed out that the current telecom network fraud, virtual currency pig killing plate, online live broadcast fraud, publishing false recruitment information and other fraud methods around the Internet and mobile payment are constantly being renewed. The fraud method shows the characteristics of "old wine in new bottles", keeping up with hot spots, and changing quickly in the short term. In addition, the behavior of some merchants using the transaction of goods and services to obtain user information excessively has also made many consumers feel that their own interests have been harmed.
Take multiple measures to prevent risks together
A series of issues surrounding the security of mobile payments need to be solved urgently to protect consumers' personal information and property. In order to improve the safety of mobile payment and protect personal rights and interests, the report believes that in-depth understanding of the behavior and habits of Chinese residents in mobile payment, grasping the overall appearance and characteristics of high-risk groups, analyzing high-frequency scenarios and typical methods of online fraud, and discussing practical security solutions in combination with users' lives and consumption scenarios are the top priorities for maintaining the healthy development of mobile payment business and the safety of consumer property.
China UnionPay experts remind consumers that first, improve their awareness of self-prevention, develop good mobile phone habits, and do not scan QR codes or leave their personal sensitive information at will; The second is to always be vigilant and not let online fraud find an opportunity to cause huge property losses due to greed for small profits; Third, investment is risky, financial management needs to be cautious, do not chase short-term high returns and trust the so-called investment experts; Fourth, if you unfortunately encounter fraud or other types of personal infringement, you should seek help from the public security and officials in time to minimize losses. In addition, you can also take the initiative to learn various preventive measures and anti-fraud skills to improve your prevention ability.
As an important means to prevent telecommunications network fraud, anti-fraud propaganda has played a significant role. According to the Report, 93.9% of the respondents said that they had been exposed to anti-deception and anti-fraud publicity in their daily life, while only about 6% had not been exposed to it in daily life. "In addition to improving consumers' awareness of anti-fraud, relevant departments need to continue to improve safety supervision standards, issue corresponding management policies for multiple risks, and promote multi-department cooperation to form synergy." Wang Pengbo said that at the same time, enterprises should guard the boundaries of business and personal privacy protection and data protection, whether mobile payment service providers or telecom operators should take the protection of customer rights and interests as the basic starting point, and pay attention to risk prevention and control.
Pang believes that relevant departments should strengthen publicity and education and the display of typical cases for vulnerable groups, high-risk groups, industries with high incidence of cases and key areas, and adhere to the combination of extensive publicity and precision education. Adhere to full-chain and whole-link governance, lawfully exercise law enforcement and management methods, and increase the intensity of punishment for relevant illegal and criminal acts. In addition, in view of the dynamically changing fraud methods, establish and improve the long-term mechanism of risk prevention and control, and accurately combat all kinds of new mobile payment fraud.
For financial institutions, Pang suggested standardizing rights and responsibilities and strengthening requirements in areas such as identity verification, risk warnings, customer portraits, and abnormal transaction monitoring, and implementing information sharing, data connectivity, and online verification with data, public security, telecommunications, market supervision, taxation and other departments to improve the effect of joint prevention and control.
"Consumers should raise their awareness of risk prevention and strengthen the protection of personal information, and many cases show that telecom fraud is obtained through personal information." Zhou Maohua suggested establishing and improving the security monitoring system of mobile payment transactions to improve the accuracy of risk prevention; Improve the legal system, increase the cost of violations of laws and regulations, and deter related violations. In addition, financial institutions need to strengthen the monitoring of suspicious transactions, and have a regular reporting mechanism for suspicious transactions to jointly protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.
(Economic Daily, Yao Jin)