Finance
Human Error’s Impact on Financial Services Security
Published
1 year agoon
By
admin
By Paul Holland, CEO of Beyond Encryption
According to the Information Commissioner’s Office, in 2021 there were 9,758 recorded security incidents altogether, with only 2,759 of these being classified as cyber incidents. The remaining 6,999 were classed as non-cyber incidents, caused by human error, with the most frequent incident (1,637) being misfired emails.
Even phishing – a commonly known social engineering tactic that prays on human error and a lack of vigilance around cybersecurity – caused fewer incidents, with the ICO reporting 1,016 in 2021.
What does this mean? According to the data, it is 61% more likely for businesses to send an email containing sensitive data to the wrong recipient than to fall victim to a phishing attempt. On one hand, a case could be made that people are becoming more educated on phishing attacks, as 2021’s data does show a 12% drop in reported incidents compared to the previous financial year. On the other hand, it could be argued that a similar level of education needs to be made on the amount of outbound email-related data breaches.
Email is a powerful collaboration tool and is vital for businesses. However, it is also a major exit point for sensitive data. The average office worker is believed to send roughly 40 emails every day. Over the course of five days, this provides approximately 200 opportunities a week to inadvertently send data to the wrong recipient. In the case of the financial services industry, where organisations are routinely handling and transferring highly sensitive financial or personal information, this poses a significant problem. With 95% of cybersecurity breaches being caused by human error, it is clear that financial service organisations need to place much more focus on the human side of security.
Influence From the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the way that businesses approach security. In an office, an organisation can easily create a secure environment through firewalls, anti-virus solutions and a range of other network security measures that keeps office activity safe.
Working from home changes that. Businesses have to relinquish some of the control over the security measures they could put in place for employees, instead having to rely on their staff to remain vigilant towards cybersecurity. In an ideal world, that shouldn’t be an issue as long as staff have the correct training. According to research undertaken by the Aberdeen Group in 2019, security awareness training can reduce the risk of socially engineered cyber threats by up to 70%.
However, it is also important to understand the wellbeing impacts that the pandemic had on staff. Research has shown that between 2019 and 2020, there were an estimated 828,000 workers impacted by work-related stress, depression, or anxiety. Separately, Benenden Health found that 32.8% of people rate a heightened workload as the primary cause for workload stress and mental health issues.
Someone can receive all the training in the world, but if they are feeling stressed or anxious over an increased workload and a range of distractions caused by working from home, cybersecurity can quickly fall down the priority list for an employee. We don’t live in an ideal world, and as long as these challenges remain for employees, the risk of human error will persist.
Removing Human Error from Financial Services
The growing issue of human error must be tackled – both in the office and at home. In an industry that consistently handles high-value and sensitive financial transactions across a range of applications and identity checks, security must remain airtight at all times – especially within email communication.
Email can have a bad reputation. It is now considered one of the world’s most insecure mediums. Yet, it remains one of the most convenient and popular tools to communicate and share sensitive information, with the DMA(https://dma.org.uk/) reporting that the majority of individuals have held their current email address for over 10 years. Businesses need to utilise the right tools that can provide secure digital communications. By leveraging encrypted sensitive document delivery, organisations can have the freedom to exchange information confidently, cost-effectively and with full compliance.
Human error will never be eradicated completely. But financial services businesses can mitigate risk and achieve peace of mind by ensuring that their email communication is encrypted, with the ability to revoke user access if the email is sent to the wrong recipient.
Not only does this create a highly secure environment for employees in both the office and at home, but it creates a frictionless system that streamlines workflows. Important documents can be shared with colleagues or clients without fear, and without compromising privacy.
Finance
Taxing times for online marketplaces? Operators must act now to avoid losing sellers
Published
3 hours agoon
June 9, 2023By
admin
By Niall Kiernan, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Vertex
In today’s digital landscape, online marketplaces are an enabler for many businesses to achieve their growth ambitions. From Amazon to eBay, Etsy to Vinted, businesses of all sizes are now utilising online marketplaces, and recent years has seen exponential growth in this area. Numerous factors, including the proliferation of mobile devices and widespread availability of high-speed internet, have resulted in this escalation. Combined with consumer demand for convenience, along with the impact of the pandemic, the success of online marketplaces can be seen in the numbers. In 2021, retail eCommerce sales amounted to approximately US$ 5.2 trillion worldwide. This figure is forecast to reach US$8.1 trillion dollars by 2026.
It is clear that online marketplaces are a vital source for businesses to continue to flourish but there are still major roadblocks which can hinder a business’ efforts to capitalise on the booming sector. According to research commissioned by Vertex, which surveyed 479 finance professionals globally, seven out of ten sellers using marketplaces to trade online believe that indirect tax challenges could deter them from using them again in the future.
The complexity of ensuring a frictionless eCommerce experience
Whilst over half of respondents in the survey agreed that marketplaces are getting easier to use as a sales channel, ensuring that both operators and sellers can enjoy a frictionless experience is one of the biggest challenges in the space. Respondents indicated that they are looking for more support and guidance on issues including: how to ensure transactions and the transfer of money can be more seamless (65%), tax liabilities (64%), and compliant invoicing (63%). But what are some of the specific roadblocks both marketplace operators and sellers are experiencing?
- The cross-border trade conundrum
85% of marketplace operators surveyed indicated that they are looking to increase their seller base, however there are numerous tax complications when trade crosses borders. Four out of seven operators stated they have struggled to manage tax liabilities and tax complexities around seller shipping locations. Online marketplaces are very much a global affair, with cross-border transactions being the norm.
The difficulty here is that both operators and sellers must comply with the different tax regimes of the countries they operate in, which can be a complex and burdensome process. Seller respondents reported a wide range of issues when they sell through marketplaces, including balancing their tax liabilities and knowing where and when they are liable for tax.
- Complexities in every step of a transaction
Dig beneath the surface and the process of a transaction is much more complex than initially meets the eye. From listing fees to shipping and handling charges, or the previously mentioned cross-border trade complexities, every step in the transaction process brings multiple challenges to both the operators and sellers themselves.
45% of sellers surveyed want their marketplace operators to improve the process of finance and tax automation to overcome these barriers, but of the operators, only 56% manage all tax liabilities on their seller’s behalf. If marketplace operators want to ensure they have a healthy population of sellers, this figure needs to increase.
Tax technology for a trouble-free tomorrow
Although there are clear and significant indirect tax challenges for online marketplaces, the space remains an attractive channel for businesses to achieve their growth ambitions. 81% of businesses are taking advantage of online marketplaces to attract new customers and sell into more countries and upon further inspection, they attribute this expansion into marketplaces to reach a wider geographical market (57%), to being more competitive (50%) and to tap into cross-border sales opportunities (48%). It’s clear that sellers are wanting to utilise online marketplaces to expand their customer base globally and if operators want to increase their seller base and take advantage of the growing demand for this, and 85% of those surveyed do, then they need to ensure that their platforms offer a seamless experience for their sellers.
By investing in an end to end tax management solution which can handle all types of indirect tax requirements, you will be able to support sellers on their own individual growth journeys. In addition, you can rest assured that it will also enable them to feel confident that their chosen platforms can meet all the indirect tax requirements as they increase their cross-border sales.
To learn more about the taxing times for the marketplace and seller relationship, download the latest report by Vertex.
Business
Unlocking the Power of Data: Revolutionising Business Success in the Financial Services Sector
Published
18 hours agoon
June 8, 2023By
admin
Suki Dhuphar, Head of EMEA, Tamr
The financial services (FS) sector operates within an immensely data-abundant landscape. But it’s well-known that many organisations in the sector struggle to make data-driven decisions because they lack access to the right data to make decisions at the right time.
As the sector strives for a data-driven approach, companies focus on democratising data, granting non-technical users the ability to work with and leverage data for informed decision-making. However, dirty data, riddled with errors and inconsistencies, can lead to flawed analytics and decision-making. Siloed data across departments like Marketing, Sales, Operations, or R&D exacerbates this issue. Breaking down these barriers is essential for effective data democratisation and achieving accurate insights for decision-making.
An antidote to dirty, disconnected data
Overcoming the challenges presented by dirty, disconnected data is not a new problem. But, there are new solutions – such as shifting strategies to focus on data products – which are proven to deliver great results. But, what is a data product?
Data products are high-quality, accessible datasets that organisations use to solve business challenges. Data products are comprehensive, clean, and continuously updated. They make data tangible to serve specific purposes defined by consumers and provide value because they are easy to find and use. For example, an investment firm can benefit from data products to gain insights into market trends and attract more capital. These offer a scalable solution for connecting alternative data sources, providing accurate and continuously updated views of portfolio companies. Using machine learning (ML) based technology enables the data product to adapt to new data sources, giving a firm’s partners confidence in their investment decisions.

Suki Dhuphar
But, before companies can reap the benefits of data products, the development of a robust data product strategy is a must.
Where to begin?
Prior to embarking on a data product strategy, it is imperative to establish clear-cut objectives that align with your organisation’s overarching business goals. Taking an incremental approach enables you to make a real impact against a specific objective – such as streamlining operations to enhance cost efficiency or reshaping business portfolios to drive growth – by starting with a more manageable goal and then building upon it as the use case is proved. For companies that find themselves uncertain about where to begin their move to data products, tackling your customer data is a good place to start for some quick wins to increase the success of the customer experience programmes.
Getting a good grasp on data
Once an objective is in place, it’s time for an organisation to assess its capabilities for executing the data product strategy. To do this, you need to dig into the nitty-gritty details like where the data is, how accurate and complete it is, how often it gets updated, and how well it’s integrated across different departments. This will give a solid grasp of the actual quality of the data and help allocate resources more efficiently. At this stage, you should also think about which stakeholders from across the business from leadership to IT will need to be involved in the process and how.
Once that’s covered, you can start putting together a skilled team and assigning responsibilities to kick-off the creation and management of a comprehensive data platform that spans all relevant departments. This process also helps spot any gaps early on, so you can focus on targeted initiatives.
Identifying the problem you will solve
Now let’s move on to the next step in our data product strategy. Here we need to identify a specific problem or challenge that is commonly faced in your organisation. It’s likely that leaders in different departments, like R&D or procurement, encounter obstacles that hinder their objectives that could be overcome with better insight and information. By defining a clear use case, you will build a real solution to a challenge they are facing rather than a data product for the sake of having data. This will be an impactful case study for your entire organisation to understand the potential benefits of data products and increase appetite for future projects.
Getting buy-in from the business
Once you have identified the problem you want to solve, you need to secure the funding, support, and resources to move the project ahead. To do that, you must present a practical roadmap that shows how you will quickly deliver value. You should also showcase how to improve it over time once the initial use case is proven.
The plan should map how you will measure success effectively with specific indicators (such as KPIs) that are closely tied to business goals. These indicators will give you a benchmark of what success looks like so you can clearly show when you’ve delivered it.
Getting the most out of your data product
Once you’ve got the green light – and the funds – it’s time to put your plan into action by creating a basic version of your data product, also known as a minimum viable data product (MVDP). By starting small and gradually enhancing with each new release you are putting yourself in the best stead to encourage adoption and also (coming back to our iterative approach) help you secure more resources and funding down the line.
To make the most of your data product, it’s essential to tap into the knowledge and experience of business partners as they know how to make the most of the data product and integrate it into existing workflows. Additionally, collecting feedback and using it to improve future releases will bring even more value to end users in the business and, in turn, your customers.
Unlocking the power of data (products)
It’s crucial for companies in FS to make the most of the huge amount of data they have at their disposal. It simply doesn’t make sense to leave this data tapped and not use it to solve real challenges for end users in the business and, in turn, improve the customer experience! By adopting effective strategies for data products, FS organisations can start to maximise the incredible value of their data.
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