Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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30. To ask the Minister for Finance the actions he will take to address the rising prevalence of payment fraud; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5087/25]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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My officials are undertaking a number of actions in the effort to fight payment fraud, at both the national and EU level.

Firstly, my officials are working on transposing the Instant Payments Regulation. Besides its requirement to provide “instant” payments, the Regulation also requires the provision of an IBAN/name check, which will apply to both instant payments and standard credit transfers and will come into effect on 9 April 2025.

Secondly, negotiations are ongoing in relation to the European Commission's proposed payment services directive, which is known as PSD3, and the payment services regulation, which is known as the PSR. These will jointly replace the second Payment Service Directive, which is usually referred to as PSD2.

Proposals in PSD3/PSR include measures such as enhanced fraud reporting requirements for payment service providers to their regulators, enhanced transaction monitoring and the establishment of a European legal base for payment service providers to share fraud data. The PSR also expands the grounds for reimbursement by PSPs to fraud victims.

The proposed grounds include failure to carry out the IBAN/name check correctly and where the fraud arises from impersonation of the victim's own PSP. A further proposal is to require electronic communications services providers to cooperate with PSPs in relation to PSP impersonation fraud. The Polish Presidency has made this file a priority and is aiming to agree a general approach by the end of June.

Thirdly, at the domestic level, the National Payment Strategy recommended the establishment of a cross sectoral anti-fraud forum to be chaired initially by the Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland with representatives to include online platforms, financial services providers, telecommunications services providers and their respective regulators (the Central Bank, ComReg and Coimisiún na Meán). The National Payment strategy also recommended that public bodies should put inbound only phone numbers on the ‘do not originate list’ held by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).

Finally, noting that fraud is a cross-sectoral issue, a number of other workstreams regarding fraud are ongoing in my Department and beyond. My Department is developing Ireland’s first national financial literacy strategy, the Department of Justice has committed to drafting a regulation to permit PSPs to share fraud data and ComReg has announced an SMS Sender ID Registry to prevent text scams and to protect the SMS channel as a reliable and trustworthy communications channel.