Out of This World Agenda at Level Up 23

Coffee Connect - Lincoln Boardroom

A huge hit from our Virtual Conference is back in-person. Grab some coffee and say good morning to old friends ... or make new ones. Coffee Connect is a friendly way to talk about the upcoming conference.

Sponsored by:

A Transaction Laundering Odyssey: How One Website Unraveled a Universe of Fraudulent Merchants

Identifying one transaction laundering website isn’t enough these days to stop bad actors. Transaction launderers increasingly create a network of accounts, known as merchant clusters, as a way of load balancing. In this spotlight presentation, LegitScript’s Director of Merchant Monitoring will walk you through a real case study of how LegitScript analysts uncovered a massive transaction laundering network from just one violative website. You’ll see the steps we took to uncover thousands of clustered merchants, and learn tips about what you can do in your own investigations. Identifying one transaction laundering website isn’t enough these days to stop bad actors. Transaction launderers increasingly create a network of accounts, known as merchant clusters, as a way of load balancing. In this spotlight presentation, LegitScript’s Director of Merchant Monitoring will walk you through a real case study of how LegitScript analysts uncovered a massive transaction laundering network from just one violative website. You’ll see the steps we took to uncover thousands of clustered merchants, and learn tips about what you can do in your own investigations.

Andy Vrabel
Director, Merchant Monitoring
LegitScript

Presented by LegitScript

Lunch 

Lunchtime - a great time to swing by partner tables orbiting the conference. Tell them "thank you" for being a valuable contributor to the payments ecosystem and the MAC community. Before you head to lunch, work on your MAC Gamification challenges. 

Sponsored by

Observations for How Best to Preserve Diplomacy While Navigating Critical Conversations

A deep dive into the power skills of preserving the idea that we as human beings all need different things on different days.  This session will provide you with strategies to be able to find something to meet others where they are at, with the hope that we’ll make things a little clearer to finding the path to constructive conversations rather than going blow to blow with differing opinions.

Shari Savlick 
Vice President, Merchant Compliance 
Merrick Bank

Some of Your Merchant Data is Wrong…and Why it Matters

Inaccurate and incomplete merchant data exposes you to potential assessments. In this session, we’ll share case examples illustrating how accurate data and technology paired with expert analysis enables systematic decision-making.

We’ll discuss:

• Potential risks and consequences of relying on inaccurate or outdated data
• How to overcome data deficiencies to protect against assessment and reputational concerns
• Leveraging strong data and analytics to adapt to the ever-changing risk landscape

Rochelle Blease
President & Chief Product and Strategy Officer
G2

Presented by G2

Combating the Unknown: Navigating the Unified Threat Landscape

Presented by EverC

* Pick up your reception drink tickets after this last session

How to De-Risk Your Portfolio

Kount and Midigator have joined forces to provide an end-to-end solution for fraud and chargebacks. It’s now easier than ever before to maintain a healthy, secure, and profitable merchant portfolio.

Scott Przybyla 
Vice President of Global Channel Partners
Kount, an Equifax Company 

Mark Standfield 
President
Midigator

Presented by Kount, an Equifax Company

Opening Reception 

Dock your ship at the space station and join the risk & compliance community for drinks and community as we gather after a successful first day. 

<- Pick your orbit path. You are welcome to jump back and forth between two equally sized and equally awesome sets of sessions. There will be time after each session to journey to the other stage next door. ->

LUNAR STAGE

GALAXY STAGE

Government Relations Panel: Payments Regulation & Law Enforcement

Progress in the payments industry moves at a fast pace.  Sometimes, the industry moves faster than regulators can keep up.  Other times, government works rapidly to create, modify, and enforce regulations.  To help you keep up in this environment, panelists from the MAC Government Relations Strategic Interest Group will discuss regulatory issues impacting the payments industry.  Join us to hear the latest updates on some of today’s most relevant regulatory concerns including processing for high-risk merchants, surcharging, data harvesting and monetization, peer-to-peer payments, equal access to the payments system, and the impact of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals in payments.

Jon Genovese
VP, Regulatory Compliance
MerchantE

Deron Hicks
Senior Vice-President, Head of Government Relations
Global Payments

Scott Talbot
Senior Vice President of Government Affairs
Electronic Transactions Association

Moderator: 
Chris Geron
Vice President, Global Client Security
Elavon

How to Turn No Into Yes and the Sales Dept Into Risk Allies

The Risk and Sales departments are playing different positions on the same team yet we need both to succeed. Let's understand the challenges that Sales face when they have to keep going back to the customer over and over. Are we helping Sales to own the outcome? What are the competitive demands? Where can we be more flexible? And, let's discuss how to flip the conversation from a series of No's to a definitive Yes.

Kate Root
SVP/Managing Director - Chesapeake Bank

Josh Fochek
VP of Sales - Global Payments

Preston Brimley
Chief Operations Officer - Eight Processing

Nacha Update – ACH’s Spatial Position in Payments

Jeanette provides attendees with important updates on several key issues regarding the ACH Network. Did you know that Same Day ACH was increased to $1M per entry for both debit and credit? How about the new late-night delivery from ACH Operators? The modern ACH Network continues to change and grow. For example, you’ll hear about the success story of business-to-business payments which saw an increase of 13% in 2022, and about micro-entries and how Nacha is addressing those payments as the industry moves to implement stronger controls, and everything in-between to ready your organization for participation with ACH.

Speaker:
Jeanette Fox
Sr. Director of Risk Investigations, ACH Network, Risk Management 
Nacha

A long time ago in a galaxy far away... Merchants who had non-traditional bank accounts used to be considered high-risk. But times have changed and we're not in the same place as in the pre-pandemic times. Are these merchants still risky? Or are they now too common for concern? We'll discuss these questions and provide some best practices to onboard and monitor these merchants and how you can keep your risk manageable. 

Jennifer Maddux
Technical Compliance Manager
Intuit

Lunch Sponsored By:

Payments as a Service: Processing for Platforms and ISVs

Join Andrew Bigart of Venable LLP for a discussion of the legal and regulatory considerations of “payments as a service” and processing for platforms and ISVs.  

Andrew Bigart
Partner
Venable

Presented by

Automating Chargeback Management with Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT

The latest developments in machine-learning technology and chatbot communication have shown these tools can be transformative for merchants by enabling them to automate and optimize chargeback management processes while providing timely, ultra-responsive information to consumers. By leveraging machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence, companies can detect patterns in payments data, identify chargeback risks, and automatically respond to chargeback claims with greater accuracy and efficiency. Utilization of AI and ChatGPT has led to a drastic increase in value to companies while significantly reducing operational costs, improving customer experience, and minimizing chargeback losses.

Presented by

Deep Impact? What Recent Law Enforcement Actions Can Mean to the Payments Industry

Class action lawsuits and law enforcement actions have been hitting the payments ecosystem, kicking up quite a bit of space dust. Our panel of experts will explore the resulting craters and examine both the pebbles and asteroids. You will hear about the long-term impacts and what the next meteor shower might be. They will discuss merchant recruiting, contracting, stepping over the regulatory lines in the sand, and the concept of "going Canadian style." 

Ed Marshall
Partner 
AGG

Ellen Berge
Partner 
Venable

Nicole Meisner
Partner 
Taft Stettinius & Hollister

Global technical body EMVCo explains how payment stakeholders can benefit from features in the latest version of the EMV®️ 3-D Secure (EMV 3DS) specification, helping issuers, acquirers and merchants prevent fraud across e-commerce channels and devices, while optimising the user experience for consumers.

New features detailed during this session include Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC), to better determine the legitimacy of a transaction; new data elements to support out-of-band (OOB) authentication, enabling simpler, easier-to-use transaction confirmation where required; and user interface (UI) enhancements to enrich the user experience without adding unnecessary friction to the checkout process.

EMVCo will also be joined by payment authentication network, Arcot, who will provide insights into its implementations of EMV 3DS, outline the commercial benefits it has realised, and potential challenges that it has helped overcome. These include issues faced by merchants and payments solution providers such as liability shift and reported fraud from issuers.

Speakers:
Oliver Manahan
Director of Engagement and Operations  EMVco

James Rendell
CTO 
Arcot

NABP’s RogueRx Investigations Team will provide a collection of cyber-tools that can be used to investigate a suspect merchant. Catch your dodgy merchants in the act!

Justin Macy, PharmD, JD
Digital Health Senior Manager
NABP 

Niamh Lewis, JD
Digital Health Regulatory Expert
NABP 

Presented by National Association of Boards of Pharmacy

AI, Global Intelligence and The Promise of Safe and Secure Transactions

More than ever, consumers expect every transaction to be frictionless, instant and safe. Financial institutions are increasingly faced with the task of detecting and preventing fraud that changes at a moment’s notice while still providing high-quality payments services. Learn how acquirers and PSPs are facing these evolving expectations while increasing approval rates and reducing fraud and how novel applications of AI and Machine Learning are creating a world where high fraud losses are the exception, not the norm.

Paul Reed
Manager, Mastercard, Product Development, Cyber and Intelligence Solutions
Brighterion

Presented by Brighterion

Break

Refuel. Recharge. Reconnect.

PCI DSS v.4.0: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Compliance
 
 
This session will discuss changes and updates brought by Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) version 4.0 and steps on how to become compliant with the new standard. It will also discuss how to develop a mindset of security instead of viewing compliance as a checklist item. You'll learn how to start becoming compliant with PCI DSS v4.0 and how to combat common threats to businesses. 

Michael Simpson
Principal Security Analyst
SecurityMetrics

An economic downturn can be a serious threat to acquirers, but it can also be an opportunity. Every recession comes with a spike in fraud and chargebacks, and many merchants will struggle to deal with these challenges on their own. Some acquirers will lose revenue as merchants enter monitoring programs or close up shop for good. Others will spring to the aid of their merchants in a time of need, earning lifelong customers and a sterling reputation. Join us to learn how you can help your merchants navigate difficult circumstances, strengthening their businesses as well as your own.

Mark Standfield 
President
Midigator

Scott Przybyla 
Vice President of Global Channel Partners
Kount, an Equifax Company 

Smaller Crews & Big Adventures - How Small to Medium-Sized ISOs Can Maximize Their Efforts

Crewing a smaller ISO can be a harrowing affair fraught with more risks than support.

No In-House Legal Team.
No huge data analytics team.
And, you need to make tough choices and balances.

In this important session, a panel of industry veterans will talk through the pain points and challenges of being a small to medium-sized ISO but also offer best practices and tips to help you on your own journeys. They will discuss risk appetites, making trade-offs and choices, and the all-important choices around manual versus automated.

Alexis Lichterman
Founder & CEO
Salus Payments

Jordan Stewart
Founder 
96 Payments

Deon McKinney
Chief Risk Officer
Trinity Payments

A New Risk Management Framework for the Era of Credit Push Fraud

Nacha updated the Risk Management Framework in 2022 to reflect evolving threats posed to the Network by credit push fraud scenarios. These schemes include business email compromise (BEC), vendor and payroll impersonation frauds, and Account Take Over (ATO). Financial Institutions, Third-Party Senders, and other payments participants must also adjust our strategies to mitigate credit push scenarios. The 2022 Risk Management Framework focuses on three areas Nacha believes will have the greatest impact on reducing credit push fraud: enhanced guidelines and Rules to support RDFI risk management responsibilities; information and data sharing; and end-user education.

Jordan Bennett
Senior Director, Network Risk 
Nacha

Volunteer Reception - Volunteer Room Sponsored by G2

Thank you, MAC volunteers! MAC is a volunteer-fueled association and our success is tied to your efforts. Please join us in the Volunteer Lounge to say thank you. 

Transaction Laundering Detection (TLD) - A Notification Service by Visa That Identifies Merchants Suspected of Laundering Transactions

Learn about transaction laundering, the indications that a merchant may be laundering transactions, and how to help prevent it. Become familiar with TLD and how it works to help Visa clients and agents identify and remove merchants engaged in this activity. 

Natalia Kleschevnikova
Senior Manager Ecosystem Security & Integrity 
Visa

3DS for Ecommerce: Benefits of the Data

Numbers talk! Join us for a comprehensive session on the current course of EMV 3DS as we go through the hard data in correlation with the benefits for ecommerce businesses today as well as what these numbers mean for the future. Touching upon subjects like authentication rates and the exchange of information, we’ll take a deep dive into the data of one of the most important fraud tools in today’s ecosystem.

Yitz Medolowitz
CEO and Co-founder
PAAY

Presented by:

Break

Refuel. Recharge. Reconnect.

Mastercard & the Franchise Management Program (FMP)

The Franchise Management Program (FMP) program works with customers and service providers to ensure that they understand and operate within franchise architecture and standards to minimize operational, financial, reputational, and compliance risk. In addition, the FMP provides industry best practices to support business growth by enhancing the overall operational efficiency and profitability of the issuing and acquiring portfolio while maintaining losses at an acceptable level. Come join Jonathan Uzzo from Mastercard as presents on the FMP. He'll cover all aspects of the program, provides recent updates, and go over the latest trends. 

Jonathan Uzzo
Director of Franchise Customer Engagement & Performance
Mastercard

Solar Flare - Main Stage

Session Details TBD

Break

Refuel. Recharge. Reconnect.

Closing Keynote: The $10B Problem: Countering Criminal Networks in the Web3 Space

A presentation on how the blockchain analytics company Chainalysis is working with the regulatory, law enforcement, and cryptocurrency community to combat financial crime in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.  This presentation will include a case study on a massive and coordinated scam with tens of thousands of known victims and illustrate how Chainalysis is deploying advanced blockchain analytics and investigative techniques to uncover crime cartels and circumvent money laundering efforts.

Stuart Martin
Senior Cybercrimes Investigator
Chainanalysis

Boxed Lunches & Roundtable

MAC was founded on the idea of a collaborative community as members swapped their toughest cases and discussed the fraud trends they were seeing hitting their portfolios. Level Up keeps the tradition going with the annual Roundtable. Bring your questions, discuss what keeps you up at night, and share your insights. Conference speakers, industry experts, and solution providers will also be there to provide tips, insights, and best practices. 

END

Time to land the ships back at home base, say goodbye to your fellow explorers, and return home to tell everyone about the knowledge you picked up on this journey.

Board of Directors Meeting