Mobile banking standard ISO 12812

New international standards on mobile banking have been agreed and key consumer protections are promoted thanks to Consumers International's place on the ISO working group which drafted international standard 12812 Core banking – mobile financial services.

Consumers International has worked for the past four years on the development of the standard, working with members encountering, at times, resistance from the industry side of the working group.

Consumers International were able to negotiate for better industry practices to be adopted. We fought for limits on how much consumers would be liable for unauthorised or fraudulent use of their payment systems. We secured more transparency in remittances sent between countries and we gained important safeguards on logging transactions and receipts, with electronic logs being kept available.

One specific issue that had clearly not been considered until our intervention was the treatment of dormant assets, in particular in the event of the death of an account holder, a major issue where consumers do not have an individualised mobile phone contract as in much of Africa. The standard will be reviewed periodically. As mobile financial services become ever more present, especially in developing countries, we must maintain the pressure for improved protections.