Call to regulate e-payment firms

Editor, Forum Page

Straits Times

Several parties have called for regulation of e-payment firms, due to the 

recent cases of fraud involving a few unauthorized payments through Pay Pal.

I suggest that the following points be considered in a regulatory review:

• The incidence of fraud now represents a negligible percentage of the transactions made through Pay Pal 
• Pay Pal now sends an email to notify the customer about a payment that had been made
• Most of the transactions made through Pay Pal are for small amounts
• Pay Pal has a policy to compensate its customers from losses arising from fraudulent payments.

I suggest that the decision for stronger security measures be left to Pay Pal to decide, balancing the risk and 

the convenience to customers. I am a regular user of Pay Pal and find their security measures to be adequate 

and convenient.

When I make payment by credit card, I have often been inconvenienced by the need to reply with a one-time

password sent by my bank (not Pay Pal), even for small amounts. I prefer an option to specify a threshold, below which

this measure can be bypassed: I am prepared to take the risk.

Rather than ask Pay Pal to adopt the security measures imposed by our banks, I prefer that our banks should

consider adopting the measures now used by Pay Pal.

Tan Kin Lian