Security of payments The rapid development of e-commerce in recent years and the increased use of electronic channels to initiate payments pose new challenges related to ensuring the security and customers’ data. As of September 2019, it has become mandatory in Europe to implement strong customer authentication. This means that when an electronic payment is initiated, at least two independent elements from different categories – knowledge, possession and inherence – must be used in the process. In the case of remote payment transactions, e.g. via internet, an additional requirement is introduced to perform so-called dynamic linking – linking the code for each transaction to a specific amount and a specific payee. These requirements are implemented by the payment service providers in our country. For the practical implementation of these regulatory requirements, new technologies are again coming to the rescue. Recently, biometric authentication has shown great potential by providing verification of elements characterising the user: fingerprint, iris scanning, facial recognition, etc. Many payment service providers in Bulgaria have already introduced similar customer identification methods using mobile banking applications. Apart from convenience, this leads to a significant increase in the security of the payment process, allowing the use of biometric data for customer identification. On the occasion of the forthcoming review of the Second Payment Services Directive, a comprehensive assessment of the impact of strong customer authentication on the level of payment fraud is to be carried out.
The question is whether this tightening of the laws will be sufficient; the incentives for following the competition laws are still fairly weak. It is individuals (company managers, directors, owners) who prepare and make the decisions on limiting competition in contravention of the law, but the current legislation is fairly weak with regard to personal responsibility. In the USA, on the other hand, legislation is more stringent - the responsible decision-makers can be personally sentenced to high fines or to imprisonment. Perhaps we need to have the same principle in Sweden. The government has also said that if the proposed tightening of the competition laws does not prove sufficient, it may consider designating these matters a criminal offence. The existence of what is known as non-tariff trade barriers creates difficulties for import competition, which could otherwise have subdued prices. One example is the building materials market, where special national regulations and voluntary product standards make import competition difficult. Sometimes the endeavour to satisfy information and protection interests can lead to trade barriers that hamper competition. The requirement that chemical products such as washing powder and cleaning fluids (which are more than 90 per cent more expensive in Sweden than the EU average) must be 8  The Swedish Competition Authority, (2001), "Why are construction goods more expensive in Skåne and food cheaper in Western Sweden? ", Swedish Competition Authority's report series, no. 1. 9  The Swedish Competition Authority, (2001), "Can local authorities push down food prices? ", Swedish Competition Authority's report series no. 4.