J.P. Morgan, Chubb Insurance and PaymentWorks recently came together for an enlightening panel discussion on the state of fraud today. The bad news? Fraud isn’t going away – in fact, the FBI tells us it’s a $43 billion dollar problem. The good news: There are tangible things you can do to protect yourself and your organization.

Here are my top 3 takeaways from the discussion that will help you stay vigilant and prevent a social engineering fraud from costing your business millions.  

Vendor Onboarding 101: How to Build a More Secure and Compliant Process

Top 3 Take-Aways from Our Live Event with AP Guru, Debra R. Richardson

We recently had the pleasure of talking to Debra R. Richardson, LLC., who is using her 20+ years of experience in AP, AR, general ledger and financial reporting for Fortune 500 companies to help AP teams implement authentication

techniques, internal controls and best practices to prevent fraud in the vendor master file. She also has a weekly blog and hosts the podcast: “Putting the AP in hAPpy”.

Author note: I had the pleasure of meeting Kristen Drobnis during this past summer.  She was gracious with her time and passionate about risk.  This combination intrigued me so much I immediately asked her if she would be on our podcast.  This podcast and blog are taken from our interview in August 2021.

As the Chief Risk and Privacy Officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, one of the largest privately-held broker dealers in the United States, Kristen Drobnis understands risk as well as anybody. 

And while the word ‘risk’ itself conjures up images of theft, fraud and other treacherous topics, Kristen brings a calm and measured approach to this fascinating industry.

PaymentWorks sat down with Kristen to discuss many topics, including why she loves her job, how to deal with fraudsters intent on playing the long game, and what element of dealing with risk keeps her up at night.

You can listen to the entire podcast here.

All day long we hear from customers and prospects alike that their vendor master data is ‘a mess’, ‘out of date’ and ‘full of duplicates’.  We have published in the past about the hidden ways your vendor master is costing your organization with both fraud risk and compliance issues, but we understand that many organizations find it to be a challenge to quantify those risks in dollar terms when working towards making an investment in automation and clean up. 

We get it, it can be overwhelming to nail down the myriad ways a messy vendor is costing your organization.  We’ve spoken with countless customers and prospects and gathered for you these three factors you can, and should, consider when creating your cost/benefit analysis.

"I feel as if I am holding a hand grenade with the pin pulled."

This is an actual quote from one of our customers, before she was a customer.  We hear versions of this all of the time when we speak to prospects. People are scared. 

Hopefully, you have already read the highlights from the first part of our absorbing interview with Dave Birch. (You can listen to the podcast here.)

And if you have then by now you know that as one of the industry's top money experts he writes books and advises companies, among his many endeavors. Birch's name and reputation is well established in the field of identity. 

But that doesn't mean he is any different from anyone else who has to go through the exhaustive efforts of proving their identity. As an executive officer of a company that was entitled to some pandemic assistance last year, Birch needed to provide proof of his address in order to facilitate what he referred to as "this ridiculous process."

Yakut Akman has 40 years of experience in financial services, covering a wide range of functions globally, including Operations & Technology, Risk Management, Audit, and Regulatory Compliance.   ​

She recently joined us for our Risky Business Podcast.  Excerpts from that conversation are below.  You can listen to the entire interview here.

Ms. Akman started her career at Citibank Istanbul as an Executive Trainee and then worked in multiple locations gaining extensive global experience. Over time, she excelled in Operations Management as a thought leader and a change agent as the financial markets, and in response, the regulatory expectations grew more complex. Ms. Akman focused on process efficiency and effectiveness while balancing operational risks and controls. She sharpened these skills in Internal Audit overseeing new emerging risks. As a Risk Manager of key businesses, Ms. Akman actively interacted with government agencies around the world. She successfully addressed high-profile, enterprise-wide issues by setting standards, building trust and achieving sustainable results.

Compliance is not anyone’s favorite word. The angst and tension many procurement and AP staff work with on the daily is only exacerbated by the worry of accidentally violating terms of compliance.  There are the considerations of the external world, such as the OFAC and debarment lists that haunt payments professionals (hello giant federal fine!), but there is also the world of internal compliance- much of it shifting with stunning regularity.  

We recently spent time with Valarie Van Vlack, the Treasurer at Texas State University, discussing the role of Treasury in supporting the university’s mission, as well as the ubiquity- and creativity- of fraudsters attempting to scam higher education institutions.  Excerpts are below.  You can listen to the full interview here.