Electronic Money System Security Objectives (EMSSO) report

The "Electronic Money System Security Objectives" (EMSSO) report, published today (pdf 345 kB), presents the expectations of the Eurosystem with regard to the technical security of e-money schemes. The report contains a general description of e-money schemes, a comprehensive risk/threat analysis and a list of security objectives that should be met by e-money schemes in order to cover these risks/threats.

The EMSSO report is a follow-up to the ECB's 1998 "Report on Electronic Money" which defined a common policy with regard to electronic money and established a set of general requirements that electronic money schemes should fulfil. The 1998 report serves as a basis for the oversight of e-money schemes by all the national central banks (NCBs) of the euro area.

The EMSSO report, as a complement to the 1998 report, is published in the light of the Eurosystem's interest in fostering both the soundness and efficiency of payment systems. The security objectives set out in the EMSSO report will be used by the Eurosystem to assess the overall reliability and technical security of e-money schemes, and should increase public confidence in these systems. These objectives are also designed to level the regulatory playing-field for the different schemes. Furthermore, they have the potential to facilitate the interoperability of different e-money schemes.

The EMSSO report has benefited from the comments received as a result of the public consultation that ran from March to September 2002. The Eurosystem is aware that both the changing nature of the e-money environment (with new initiatives emerging) and an occasional lack of market expertise in such a standardised and detailed security framework means that prudence and pragmatism are required when assessing the fulfilment of the security objectives. Hardcopies of the report are can be obtained free of charge from the ECB's Press and Information Division (fax: +49 69 1344 7404 or email: info@ecb.int).