Business
The State of Cyber Security in Financial Services
Published
11 months agoon
By
editorial
Written by Aare Reintam, COO, CybExer Technologies
The financial and banking sectors have long been a high-priority target for cyber criminals, with the potential for huge monetary gains acting as an incentive for both sophisticated and low-level attacks. Ransomware attacks have skyrocketed, whilst the potential for cyber criminals to gain access to endless amounts of customer data has created a boom in identity theft with this information being sold on the dark web for high financial returns. Not only this, but inside information can help cyber criminals to gain insights into the stock market, which has allowed them to further exploit the market.
Although banks are reluctant to admit the severity and number of threats they face, VMware reported a 238% increase in cyberattacks targeting financial institutions in the first half of 2020. The pandemic served as a huge catalyst for cyber crime in the already vulnerable financial services sector. In their attempt to digitise their offering and move with the times, many banks found themselves partnering with FinTechs and third party app developers, thereby creating an extensive ecosystem with multiple players involved in day to day transactions.
The knock-on effect of having more players in the ring is the need for multiple vendor systems to be properly integrated. This causes issues since not all these systems are particularly secure in the first place, and it increases the surface area for cyber criminals to target. While it is critical for banks to digitise, the resulting supply chains are typically vulnerable and susceptible to attack, creating huge opportunities for cyber criminals to access a lucrative store of customer data and monetary assets.
The financial and banking sector is a lifeline for economies and vital to people’s daily activities. For banks, failing services put much more than their reputation at stake. Being able to make and receive payments is critical to the functioning of any economy and society, and the protection of data is a question of integrity.
Cultural Change
It may seem obvious that the seriousness of cyber threats would put banks on high alert, however, the action taken has not always been extensive enough. Some banks have been put off by the need to commit significant time and resources to appoint an expensive and experienced fully dedicated team, and to invest in the right tools to help protect themselves.
Additionally, difficulties exist with being able to accurately pinpoint what form those cybersecurity threats will take. Agile and adept, the nature of the attack changes constantly, making it extremely difficult for the financial sector to put exact measures in place, which risk being redundant within weeks with the emergence of new creative cyber attacks.
One way that forward thinking banks are looking to tackle the cyber threat is through engaging their staff in interactive simulations that educate participants on how to spot potential threats, as well as how to best deal with them.The benefit of this is that employees on the ground, at any number of seniority levels, are able to play a more active role in ensuring business continuity. Despite the highly technical aspect of cyber attacks, human error remains the key weakness for originations when it comes to many forms of security vulnerabilities.
New tools also mean organisations in the banking and financial services sector can assess their infrastructure as a whole, and offer broad-based educational and awareness programmes in a safe environment where staff can be trained and assessed on their ability to mitigate any incoming threat.
Investing in more stable future
If the banking and financial sectors can continue to move in the direction of investing not only in digitisation but also cyber security awareness and education, they stand to form a fully equipped and cyber literate army that can provide a long-term solution to the cyber threat which only shows signs of growth.
Cyber security strategies need to be valued as an integral part of our roadmap for digitalisation – it is a process which helps organisations to take a systematic approach to protecting digital services, not simply an analysis or a project. It’s essential that organisations are holistic about cyber security, taking into account the core business and the ecosystem around it. The cyber threat can cause serious damage to businesses, but we must not forget that those who ultimately suffer will be individuals.
In banking, there needs to be proper leadership and a guarantee that personnel have the necessary level of education, right down to the last employee. This is non-negotiable for banks and financial service organisations that want better protection and prevention when it comes to cyber.
Business
Unlocking the Power of Data: Revolutionising Business Success in the Financial Services Sector
Published
17 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.
Business
Making the Maths Work: Addressing Inflation Challenges through Measuring and Managing Risk
Published
1 day agoon
June 8, 2023By
admin
Matt Clementson, Head of Enterprise UK&I
Persistent inflation is highly troublesome for every business – with or without a recession. In addition to causing unexpected expenses, it complicates decision-making around stabilising wages, setting product prices, and investing in new areas for growth. Meanwhile, stock and bond prices plummet when alarming inflation data arrives and interest rates increase. It’s time to run leaner, making the reassessment of the strategic objectives highly urgent.
With a seat in the boardroom, CFOs can guide thoughtful discussions covering everything from procurement, resource allocation, and manufacturing to the alignment of business purpose with operational tactics and goals. CFOs must also rethink how their business measure and mitigate risk. Understanding the business’ vulnerability, they can add considerable value to their business by identifying risks early and making organisations accountable for mitigating them.
When the economy becomes uncomfortable, the mathematics behind business operations no longer work seamlessly. During more comfortable times businesses have the luxury to accept some degree of inefficiency and low productivity – but in times like these that’s no longer the case.
So now it’s more important that ever for CFOs to use the right tools and technology to manage and mitigate risk and build business resilience.
Enhancing visibility to measure and manage risk:
To navigate through periods of high inflation, CFOs need technologies that provide comprehensive visibility, and enable informed decision-making, in order to optimising cash flow, minimise costs and manage risk in a transparent and efficient way.
1. Simplify confusing processes to gain moments of clarity
Effective risk management starts with integrating data from various sources within the organisation. By consolidating data from finance, operations, procurement, and sales, CFOs can gain a holistic view of the business landscape. This integration enables them to identify potential risks associated with inflation, such as rising costs, supply chain disruptions, or changes in customer demand patterns. With access to comprehensive and real-time data, CFOs can make informed decisions that mitigate the impact of inflation on the organisation.
A good first step is to unify travel, expense, and invoice solutions, so that finance teams can integrate and streamline operations and scale spend processes without adding additional resources.
2. Make spending decisions with data-driven accuracy
Once data is integrated, CFOs can leverage advanced analytics techniques to identify patterns, trends, and potential risks. Predictive analytics can help identify inflationary pressures, allowing businesses to proactively adjust pricing strategies or negotiate favourable terms with suppliers. Additionally, scenario modelling can simulate the impact of different inflation rates on the organisation’s financials, enabling CFOs to devise appropriate strategies for managing risk. By harnessing the power of analytics, CFOs can navigate inflation challenges with greater confidence and precision.
3.Driving business agility through automation
Facing a myriad of disruptors, companies in every industry are making strategic decisions aimed at remaining competitive in the market and with their people. Digitisation, standardisation, and automation will be critical as businesses focus on solving problems for their customers in innovative, lasting ways
AI technologies, such as machine learning algorithms, can analyse vast amounts of data to uncover hidden insights and patterns. And with automated, customisable controls, CFOs can keep their firm agile – re-adjusting spend controls to match the corporate travel and expense (T&E) policy whenever their business needs to adapt or pivot. Only then will spending insights allow them to review how policies impact business performance and continue to optimise cash management.
Making the maths work
In a business environment plagued by persistent inflation, CFOs play a crucial role in addressing the associated challenges. By rethinking how their organisations measure and manage risk, CFOs can enhance their decision-making capabilities and add significant value. The integration of data, advanced analytics, and AI technologies enables CFOs to build resilience, standardise processes, ensure compliance, and deliver insights to the entire enterprise. By making the maths work in the face of inflation, businesses can navigate uncertain economic times with confidence and stay on the path of sustainable growth.
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