Working Groups

The FIGI Working Groups developed knowledge, technical tools, and policy recommendations on the following three areas: Security (including Cyber Security), Digital ID for Financial Services, and Electronic Payments Acceptance.

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Security

The FIGI Working Groups developed knowledge, technical tools, and policy recommendations on the following three areas: Security (including Cyber Security), Digital ID for Financial Services, and Electronic Payments Acceptance.

Security, Infrastructure and Trust (SIT) Working Group:

The Security, Infrastructure and Trust (SIT) Working Group, led by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), aimed to build confidence and trust in the use of digital financial services and develop tools to assess digital financial service provider security compliance, address digital fraud, protect the privacy of consumer data and investigate interoperable authentication technologies for security digital financial services. The SIT Working Group was composed of four workstreams: (i) Security (Application Security; Telecommunications Infrastructure Security; Interoperable Authentication Technologies for DFS); (ii) Trust; (iii) Quality of Service (QoS); and (iv) Distributed ledger technologies (DLT). The FIGI SIT WG has also established a DFS Security Lab at ITU for conducting security audits on DFS applications based on USSD, STK and Android environments. The resources and technical reports developed by the SIT WG can be found on our webpage, and include technical guidance and best practices regarding the management of security risks across the DFS value chain, a DFS Security Assurance Framework for implementing security controls to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities to the telecom infrastructure and application layer across the DFS ecosystem, analysis of use cases and technical standards for implementing strong authentication technologies, measurement of key performance indicators for the quality of service and quality of experience for digital financial services; mitigation of SS7 vulnerabilities, addressing data privacy risks of emerging technologies in digital finance and analysis of the security and legal aspects of DLT for digital finance. More information about the reports produced by the SIT WG can be obtained here:

Cybersecurity for Financial Market Infrastructures Workstream (SIT Working Group):

The Cybersecurity for Financial Market Infrastructure Workstream, led by the WBG as part of the SIT Working Group, aimed to explore compliance and best practices for cybersecurity specifically on financial infrastructures. A toolkit of resources and materials has been developed as a resource for awareness and education for policymakers and related stakeholders and has recently issued a newsletter to stay informed of new issues related to cyber security.
This workstream, together with the European Central Bank (ECB), published the ‘Cyber Resilience for Financial Market Infrastructures’ report, which presents a methodology developed by the ECB to operationalize the Guidance on Cyber Resilience for FMIs provided by the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI)—International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO). The methodology presented within this report can be used by FMIs and authorities to comply with and assess their FMIs against the CPMI-IOSCO Guidance, thereby enhancing the overall cyber resilience of financial market infrastructures critical for financial stability and financial inclusion.

Digital Identification for Financial Services Working Group:

The Digital ID (ID) Working Group, led by the WBG, aimed to identify and accelerate the use of digital identification for expanding access to, and improving uptake of, financial services. This working group worked closely with the WBG’s Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative to identify ways to leverage IDs for financial inclusion, including through digital platforms. The Working group published a blog post on highlights from the G20 Digital Identity Onboarding report, with a particular emphasis on policy considerations relevant to digital ID for the financial sector. Many of the principles relevant to ID as a whole as have been outlined in the ID4D Principles on Identification. The FIGI Digital ID working group worked to translate these policy considerations into practical approaches that can be applied at the national level given different country contexts and regulatory frameworks that pertain to the financial sector. The working group also developed an ID assessment  tool for the financial sector, which complements the Identification for Development (ID4D) Identity Management System Analysis (IMSA) framework.
Most recently, the FIGI Digital ID Working Group contributed to FATF’s Guidance on Digital ID, which was initially circulated as a draft for public consultation in November, 2019. This highlights the benefits of trustworthy digital identity for improving the security, privacy and the convenience of identifying people remotely for both onboarding and conducting transactions while also mitigating ML/TF risks. As a response to COVID-19, the FATF have released a statement in April 2020 related to simplified CDD measures and the use of Digital ID and implications of digital/contactless payments and digital onboarding to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Electronic Payments Acceptance Working Group:

The Electronic Payments Acceptance (EPA) Working Group, led by the WBG, aimed to foster effective practices for enabling and encouraging acceptance and use of electronic payments, with an emphasis on person-to-business (P2B) payments, both for proximity payments at the point of interaction and e-commerce, and on unserved and underserved groups. This working group worked on advancing the understanding of effective practices for enabling merchant acceptance of electronic payments, in the interest of reducing dependencies on “cash out”, and increasing the prevalence of cashless transactions with MSMEs, including through e-commerce. The working group also focused on improving usage of electronic payments, including through policies and incentives.
The group recently released a new report entitled ‘Electronic Payments Acceptance Incentives: Literature Review and Country Examples’, which collates and summarizes existing literature covering electronic payments acceptance incentives, country examples and identifies emerging trends.

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