The Future of Fraud: Fraud Trends Research and Insights

Fraud and Financial Crime

Sam Sweet

Jul 8, 2019

For the 4th year in a row, Strategic Treasurer and Bottomline Technologies have partnered to develop comprehensive market research and uncover vital insights related to current fraud trends. This year’s results were provided by nearly 300 global payments professionals in a variety of roles, from treasury analysts to CEOs. The findings have been compiled in the “2019 Treasury Fraud & Controls Survey Report.”

The survey not only provides valuable statistics about the current state of fraud, but it also offers comprehensive analysis of market trends and informed predictions to provide actionable advice for your company in the fight against fraud.

This year’s survey focuses on three questions about the modern landscape of security trends and how to prevent fraud:

What security measures are most important to practitioners?

When asked to rank the leading security practices/technologies currently in use, the wide variety of payments professionals revealed that the three most important security layers are:

Segregation of duties

Firewall & antivirus software

Multi-factor authentication

While the first two techniques, segregation of duties and firewall & antivirus software, are well-established as being vital to security against treasury fraud, multi-factor authentication is a more recent addition to many organization’s security infrastructures. As the threat of online and digital fraud continues to increase, requiring employees to present multiple forms of identification before logging onto payment systems drastically reduces the risk of fraudulent activity.

What areas of security are clearly lacking?

Although there has been an increase in the overall deployment and corporate adoption of various security practices, a number of security exposures still need to be addressed. Techniques as simple as annual employee security training and testing employees’ ability to spot check fraud or identify fake phishing emails will reveal whether your organization is at risk. Although there are more advanced forms of security that have yet to see major traction, organizations must take clear and quick action to address these core elements of fraud prevention.

What new security tactics are gaining traction in the industry?

Imagine being able to detect suspicious activity occurring through your systems in real-time. You’d think the threat of fraud against your organization would be drastically reduced, right? With the introduction of user monitoring software, that vision is now a reality. By monitoring user activity within financial systems and sending alerts to administrators if anything unusual is detected, such as logging in at an abnormal hour or attempting to enter a module that users would not typically have access to, your organization will be able to accurately identify and stop possible fraud attempts before they even happen.

To find out how to optimize your organization’s fraud security infrastructure, download the full “2019 Treasury Fraud & Controls Survey Report” along with complete analysis, here.

And for even more insights into financial risk management and beyond, subscribe now and stay up-to-date on the latest trends and topics.

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Sam Sweet

Sam Sweet is a featured SmartPayments contributor who brings a global perspective to his writing. He is currently studying communications at Denison University and interning at a fast-paced, multi-faceted marketing department at a leading fintech organization specializing in global payments, banking solutions and fraud prevention platforms.
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