ING’s new AML settlement and the same message ING Belgium has agreed to pay a €1.6 million criminal settlement in a money-laundering investigation linked to transactions involving Didier Reynders, the former Belgian minister and former EU Commissioner for Justice. According to reporting on the Brussels prosecutor’s announcement, the case concerned
Verification of Payee is one of the most praised anti-fraud tools in EU payments law. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/886 (IPR – Instant Payment Regulation), payment service providers must offer payers a service that checks whether the payee’s name corresponds to the payment account identifier before a euro credit transfer is
For years, high-risk merchants, offshore gambling operators and unlicensed online investment platforms have used a simple workaround to access European payment rails: insert an EU-based company into the payment chain and call it a “payment agent”, “payment processing agent” or “collection agent.” The model became popular for obvious reasons.
The new PSR compromise text preserves the immediate refund rule for unauthorised transactions on paper. But Article 56 may give banks a structured route to delay phishing refunds where they claim objectively justified suspicion of gross negligence. EFRI has long warned that Europe’s payment-fraud framework suffers from a structural protection
A new U.S. class action against Circle raises a fundamental question for the digital financial system: when does a crypto infrastructure provider stop being a neutral technology layer and become legally accountable for enabling the movement of stolen assets? A New Test Case for Crypto Infrastructure Liability A class action
The criminal case we have been following for years has now reached a major procedural milestone. On 27 January 2026, the Regional Court of Cologne (Landgericht Köln) delivered its judgment in the joined criminal proceedings arising from 112 KLs 6/21 and 112 KLs 2/24. The written reasons were later signed
A new lawsuit against Meta deserves attention well beyond the world of social media moderation. On April 21, 2026, the Consumer Federation of America filed a class action complaint and jury trial demand in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, alleging that Meta misled D.C. users about the
The UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Financial Ombudsman Service have launched CP26/9, “Modernising the Redress System”, presenting it as a package designed to improve predictability, transparency and early intervention in consumer redress. The FCA says the aim is to create a smoother system for consumers while giving firms greater
Fraud does not operate on lies alone. It operates on accounts. On payment rails. On internal transfers. On outgoing wires. On institutions willing to keep the machinery running long after the warning signs should have triggered harder questions. That is why the newly filed U.S. class action against JPMorgan Chase
The FTC’s message is clear: online fraud is growing, fast In its 25 March 2026 testimony, The Rising Scam Economy: Modernizing Federal Approaches to Protect Americans from Foreign Fraudsters, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission delivered a blunt warning to Congress: the scam economy is expanding. In 2025 alone, U.S. consumers submitted
