FT Adviser reports that larger financial services firms are increasingly being described not just as targets of fraud, but as part of how scams succeed. According to FT Adviser, the piece looks at the role bigger organisations’ own processes may play in letting fraudulent activity through.
Steve Burns, EAC Network Solutions: For firms of our size in accountancy, law and financial advice, the lesson is not that fraud happens elsewhere to bigger players. It is that the weak point is rarely the technology itself, but the human processes around it: how a payment instruction gets checked, how a change of bank details is verified, how many people need to sign off before money moves. Smaller firms often assume their size keeps them off a fraudster’s radar, when in fact a smaller team can mean fewer checks and less separation of duties. Worth reviewing, this week rather than next quarter, who can authorise a payment change on their own, and whether that process would catch a convincing but fraudulent instruction. That review costs nothing and does not require new software, just a clear look at who can do what, unsupervised.
Source: FT Adviser
