Almost a year after being created by the Central Bank, Pix’s special return mechanism — which aims to recover amounts diverted by fraud or coup — only recovers 5% of the funds. To increase its efficiency, changes are being studied in the system.
In the Pix scam, offenders quickly spray victims’ money into different accounts, making it difficult to block and recover the funds. The BC intends to create measures to improve the tracing of operations and, thus, curb fraud and the use of illegal accounts – opened by criminals in the name of other people.
The system now allows the bank to reverse amounts to the payer’s account in cases of fraud or operational failure. The return of resources can be requested both by the institutions involved and by the person who made the Pix. In the event of a coup, you must file a report.
The changes to improve the instant payments system were presented at the Pix Forum, which gathered on September 22 a working group coordinated by the BC and secretariat by Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks).
The monetary authority decided to accept some of the suggestions made at the meeting by members of the financial market. The information was initially published by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and confirmed by the Sheet.
“Until the customer identifies the fraud, file a dispute with your PSP [prestador de serviços de pagamento]and this proceeds from the opening of the notification of infraction associated with a return until the analysis of the case, the team [tempo] for the blocking and recovery of resources”, highlighted the work group in the presentation made to the BC.
“The suggestion is to automatically open events for cases of triangulation of values using Pix”, he continued.
Today, the victim’s bank uses Pix’s infrastructure to notify the institution receiving the transfer so that the funds are blocked. The idea of the “version 2.0” of the special return mechanism is to extend the block to the fifth branch layer, that is, in the accounts subsequent to the initial recipient.
Among the suggested rules, participants propose a limitation of up to 30 minutes after receiving the transaction for the automatic opening of the branch – time that may be adequate according to further studies of fraudsters’ behavior.
Given the complexity of the tool’s new operating model, change takes time. After the publication of the technical documentation, the group estimates eight months for its development, two months for approval in a controlled environment with real simulations and two more months of controlled operation.
The proposal will be incorporated into the BC’s priority work agenda, which provides for the preparation of an action plan.
While the new version is not released, the BC is dedicated to improving the mechanism already in operation in an attempt to improve the communication flow between institutions and clients, bringing more speed to the process of returning resources.
Another significant change that received the green light from the monetary authority was the creation of specific “labels” to identify types of fraud, such as fraudulent misrepresentation and orange bills. CPFs and CNPJs suspected of the misuse of accounts would receive these markings in the database operated by the BC.
The DICT (Directory of Transactional Account Identifiers), a database managed by the BC and which stores information on receiving users and their respective accounts, would function as a “hub” for information shared between financial institutions – which would have more subsidies to curb transfers suspicions for certain accounts and strengthen their anti-fraud mechanisms.
In order to be implemented, the proposal needs to undergo operational and technological adjustments, which depend both on the actions of the BC and the institutions.
In May, at a public hearing in the Chamber of Deputies, the president of the BC, Roberto Campos Neto, spoke about the intention to hold banks accountable for orange accounts used in scams and fraud.
Some simpler propositions made in the forum were also accepted by the BC, such as the creation of a self-assessment questionnaire to be completed by financial institutions to make sure they are in compliance with the Pix security manual. The monetary authority is now working on refining the set of issues.
Seeking to simplify the system, the group suggested, among other measures, the exclusion of mandatory limits per transaction via Pix. There is an understanding that this barrier is not very effective, since the user can carry out several operations in the maximum amount allowed as long as he respects the limit per period (day or night).
According to the BC, the measures proposed at the Pix Forum are being discussed and improved internally. Some of them may be announced later this year.
“Its definitive contours still depend on the appreciation of the BC’s technical areas, in addition to evaluation by the collegiate board and other decision-making bodies. Therefore, at the moment, there is no timetable for the publication and validity of any measures”, he informed.
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