The official site of Italy's central bank

Illegal actions

The illegal use of payment systems and instruments jeopardizes the integrity of the circuits for the transfer of money, undermining the security of transactions and the confidence of users. In terms of efficiency, losses due to fraud can increase the costs of services, resulting in disequilibria in supply conditions and welfare losses for the entire community.

Illegal action can jeopardize the correct use of payment services, as in cloning or counterfeiting of payment instruments, tampering with terminals, identity theft, and so on. In other cases systems and instruments are exploited for criminal purposes extraneous to the payment system as such, as in money laundering or the financing of terrorism.

The Oversight function is directly engaged both in Italy and at European level in promoting, among financial market participants and infrastructure operators, the upgrading of security safeguards in the payment circuits, in keeping with the specificities of each instrument and its technological platform.

Another area of action is support to national and international authorities and coordinating fora in designing the methods of countering such exploitation of the payment system for criminal purposes.

This section sets out the documents relevant to the unlawful use of the payment system, or its use for unlawful purposes, with special regard to fraud, money laundering of the proceeds of crime, and the financing of terrorism.