Atos & techUK roundtable event round-up | ‘Securing the digital future of financial services’

On Tuesday 5th July, techUK and Global Tech ICT firm Atos were delighted to host “Securing the digital future of financial services”, a roundtable event convening a range of experts to discuss the transformation technology is prompting within financial services, and how businesses and policymakers can work together to safeguard the public from cyber threats and fraud.

The event was hosted by techUK’s Associate Director of Policy Neil Ross, Baroness Morgan of Cotes, former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Kulveer Ranger, techUK Board Member and Head of Strategy, Communications and Public Affairs for Northern Europe and APAC at Atos.

As technology innovation continues to develop, impacting the financial services sector, it was important that a range of experts in the field joined the conversation. As a result, the hosts were joined by:

• Aaron Chu - Advisory Practice Director, Northern Europe, Atos
• Chris Wilford - Director of Financial Services Policy, CBI
• Natalie Larnder - Head of Market Affairs, Keoghs
• Stephanie Borthwick - Policy Researcher, Which? Money
• Daniel Jonas – Head of Research and Innovation, Pay.UK
• Dianne Doodnath -  Principal, Economic Crime Remote Payments Channels, UK Finance
• Andrei Skorobogatov - Tech and Telecoms Lead, Home Office Fraud Policy Unit
• Roopa Ramaiya – VP for Communications, Feedzai
• James Hunt – Payments Fraud Specialist, Feedzai

The discussion was structured around three key themes: the scale of the sectoral cyber & fraud risk, the impact of new technologies in finding solutions, and emerging threats, and what the future challenges for the sector might look like.

In considering the current scale of the cyber and fraud threat in financial services, it was agreed that while the broad issue of cyber security had been elevated to an appropriate level on a national basis, there was still much more that policymakers and businesses involved in financial services and along the whole fraud chain should be doing to secure the many interlinking digital platforms that consumers rely on. 

This theme of securing the ‘digital ecosystem’ that exists around each consumer, such asdevices, passwords, and data, formed a key part of the discussion and one where it was agreed that interoperable systems like Confirmation of Payee can play an important part in resolving from a financial services perspective.

Critical to dealing with ‘authorised fraud’ – where consumers are often themselves confirming fraudulent payments through authorised digital infrastructure – is an expansion of consumer education programmes, so people are better able to recognise threats and protect themselves. This was raised by a number of participants as a priority for both businesses and government.

The discussion concluded by addressing the future challenges that the sector should be aware of. There was the acknowledgement that while the UK’s position as a world leader in digital banking, payments and connectivity meant that it was targeted by more fraudsters than any other country. Although this may be seen as a threat, this also presents an opportunity for UK businesses to export successful systems and best practice in combatting financial fraud internationally. 

You can find reaction to the session from Kulveer Ranger, techUK Board Member and Head of Strategy, Communications and Public Affairs for Northern Europe and APAC at Atos, here: