Laundering Money Online: a review of cybercriminals methods

Money laundering is a critical step in the cyber crime process which is experiencing some changes as hackers and their criminal colleagues continually alter and optimize payment mechanisms. Conducting quantitative research on underground laundering activity poses an inherent challenge: Bad guys and their banks do not share information on criminal pursuits. However, by analyzing forums, we have identified two growth areas in money laundering: online gaming and micro laundering.Comment: Industry report, White paper. Tools and Resources for Anti-Corruption Knowledge, June, 01, 2013. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC

An Analysis of Service Ontologies

Services are increasingly shaping the world’s economic activity. Service provision and consumption have been profiting from advances in ICT, but the decentralization and heterogeneity of the involved service entities still pose engineering challenges. One of these challenges is to achieve semantic interoperability among these autonomous entities. Semantic web technology aims at addressing this challenge on a large scale, and has matured over the last years. This is evident from the various efforts reported in the literature in which service knowledge is represented in terms of ontologies developed either in individual research projects or in standardization bodies. This paper aims at analyzing the most relevant service ontologies available today for their suitability to cope with the service semantic interoperability challenge. We take the vision of the Internet of Services (IoS) as our motivation to identify the requirements for service ontologies. We adopt a formal approach to ontology design and evaluation in our analysis. We start by defining informal competency questions derived from a motivating scenario, and we identify relevant concepts and properties in service ontologies that match the formal ontological representation of these questions. We analyze the service ontologies with our concepts and questions, so that each ontology is positioned and evaluated according to its utility. The gaps we identify as the result of our analysis provide an indication of open challenges and future work

SERVICE-PROCESS CONFIGURATIONS IN ELECTRONIC RETAILING: A TAXONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ELECTRONIC FOOD RETAILERS

Service-processes of electronic retailers are founded on electronic technologies that provide flexibility to sense and respond online to the dynamic and complex needs of customers. In this paper, we develop a taxonomy of service-processes in electronic retailing and demonstrate their linkage to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The taxonomy is grounded in a conceptual classification scheme that differentiates service-process stages on a continuum of flexibility. Using data on electronic service-processes collected from 255 electronic food retailers, we identified eight configurations for the taxonomy. We also collected and analyzed publicly reported customer satisfaction survey data that were available for 52 electronic food retailers in the study sample. The results of this analysis indicate positive and significant correlation of the ordering of the taxonomy configurations with (i) customer satisfaction with product information, product selection, web site aesthetics, web site navigation, customer support, and ease of return, and (ii) customer loyalty. Taken together, the results of our empirical analyses demonstrate that the taxonomy captures information and variety within and across the electronic service-process configurations in ways that can be related to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Interchange Fee – Competitiveness of Payment Instruments

Purpose of the article: This study describes the markets of payment instruments. It focuses mainly on the systems of credit and debit cards. Authors identify key moments in theory used in this dilemma, called Tourist Test. The market of credit cards and direct debit system is 4 side business, where the Interchange fee plays very important role. Methodology/methods: In this paper was applied secondary research. The secondary research was based on analysis of papers and literature published about Interchange fee including European Commission together with polemic about payment instruments market competitiveness. Scientific aim: The aim of this article is to identify the rules, conditions on the market of payment instruments - the system of credit cards and direct debit system. The authors try to recognize the problems on the demand and supply side. The authors focus on defying the cost-benefit approach, contributed with Tourist test. The Interchange Fee plays the key role. Findings: The approach of the scientific literature pays attention to costs and benefits, its equilibrium, also talking about social utility and social welfare the author is missing the whole impact on end consumer welfare and satisfaction. The dilemma is even more complicated due to the fact that the end consumer does not know he or she is not maximizing his or her utility, apart from the merchant, who is under pressure of margin squeeze. Conclusions: It is needed to start to measure the effectiveness and influence which the existence of Interchange Fee brings. Of course, confront the effectiveness and influence with benefits the Interchange Fee has

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE SECURITY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MEANS OF PAYMENT DEMATERIALIZATION

Some items regarding electronic commerce, electronic vulnerabilities, electronic means of payment, digital money and electronic micropayments are presented below. Then is presented a method of assessing the quality of applications and e-commerce Web sites. This method is then adapted from the operational point of view, developed and implemented in the study of the electronic micropayment systems’ security, in the purpose of analyzing and evaluating their security in the context of the means of payment dematerialization.e-commerce, micropayment, security, encryption, digital economy, EWAM

An Economic Analysis of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)

Under which conditions is it advantageous for countries to form a single payments area? This question is analyzed in a model of spatial bank competition to understand better the economic foundations of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). An economic research perspective on the mostly informal policy debates about SEPA is developed. The analysis suggests that expectations about the positive effects of SEPA may be exaggerated as most channels for enhancing public welfare seem rather weak. Still the project may be worthwhile undertaking if the cost of creating SEPA-compliant systems is reduced by extending the time frame for the implementation phase and if the use of electronic payments is promoted.SEPA, Optimum Payments Areas, Payment System, Payment Area