Fintech Unicorn PingPong Payments: Fighting Fraud is a Never-Ending Battle

The global fintech market is expanding rapidly and expected to reach $460 billion by 2025, yet total fraud losses have reached a staggering $42 billion worldwide in the past two years alone – cash taken straight from businesses’ bottom-line. This has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which while accelerating e-commerce and the growth of digital services, has also accelerated payment fraud, with COVID-19 related scams costing U.S. consumers more than $13.4 million.

A PwC report found that internal and external perpetrators are equally responsible for fraud, meaning the world’s 58 fintech unicorns must focus on ensuring both the strongest in-house due diligence whilst maintaining robust security measures. The hasty unravelling of one of Europe’s leading fintechs has cast a light on those who should have held it to account, the crucial role of corporate governance, and the need for the industry to restore trust and transparency in the overall financial services ecosystem.

Advancements in the digital payments sector over the last decade have made transactions faster, more convenient, and more cost effective for customers. However new financial technology comes with risks, and must be implemented with a strong safety net of internal policies in order to be sustainable long term.

According the Ning Wang, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer at global payments unicorn ($1.1bn) PingPong Payments, “emerging trends such as social commerce present huge opportunities for the payments sector, but the strong governance required around data handling is an immense challenge all fintechs must be equipped for – or face a perilous future.”

Ning Wang comments: “Fighting fraud is a never-ending battle, and the fintech industry presents many opportunities and challenges for regulatory compliance and supervision. The best practice for securely managing these organizations is by setting internal standards and policies of transparency and trust within the entire organization – from the IT systems to Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, in order to mitigate fraud and money laundering risks.”

Ning Wang continues: “PingPong Payments was built with the global e-commerce merchant at its core – a sector ignored by the traditional banking system that had previously suffered from expensive hidden costs and low payment speeds. We noticed a significant gap in the market and pioneered transparent fees (capped at one percent) to provide high local service standards, ensuring same day payments delivery became the new industry norm.”

Ning Wang continues: “PingPong adheres to robust financial regulations within each country we are licensed in across the U.S., Europe and Asia. Additionally, we are licensed by the Luxembourg CSSF, where we became the first Chinese fintech to obtain an EU payment license. These licenses strictly abide by the international anti-money laundering conventions, laws and regulations required by the respective regulatory authorities in each locality. We have also established the first secure and trusted compliance, vetting, KYC and regulatory approval process for China-based sellers so that global marketplaces have the maximum assurance when it comes to merchants’ credibility.”

Ning Wang concludes: “Led by a world-class team of financial and compliance experts, PingPong provides all of its employees with extensive training to identify and measure potential risks, saving merchants time, hassle and ultimately protecting their marketplace revenue from fraud or money laundering. PingPong has innovated a full stack of products dedicated to secure, efficient cross border trade, by holding funds in local bank accounts which are entirely separate from PingPong’s business accounts. We provide our sellers with the confidence that they can always withdraw, pay suppliers, and transfer money at their own convenience.”