Trustpair, Accenture and Option Finance unveil their Fraud Study 2021 conducted in collaboration with Spoking Polls! As the risk of money transfer fraud explodes, especially since the health crisis, companies have no choice but to react and protect themselves from threats. Through this study, find out how companies are organizing themselves to fight against wire transfer fraud in 2021.
Fighting against fraud: a priority for CFOs in 2021
The fight against fraud is a key issue for 89% of CFO’s. The results of the Fraud Survey reflect Trustpair’s and Accenture’s perception of the market, and can be explained by two key factors:
- the desire to protect themselves from the risks of fraud, which are exploding in times of crisis (36%)
- the project to start or continue the digital transformation of the company (27%)
“Fight against fraud is a real concern for Financial Departments and corporate treasurers. This can be explained by the growing trend of dematerialised payment, especially since the pandemic began.” – Elodie Bananier, Senior Manager at Accenture France − Head of Fraud and Financial Security, Know Your X and Market Integrity
The fight against transfer fraud is thus a subject at the heart of corporate discussions, and is fully in line with the missions of financial departments. In 88% of companies, the treasury, financial and accounting departments are generally in charge of this issue.
Ineffective control mechanisms ?
With these issues in mind, Financial Departments are getting organized and implementing control and awareness actions on an almost daily basis. Thus, 2/3 of companies have set up a team awareness program, and bank detail checks have become common practice:
- 82% carry out a systematic check when updating supplier bank details
- 75% at the start of a business relationship.
- 48% when auditing their third-party database
? But in view of the measures in place, one question persists: are these controls really effective?
The study reveals that in parallel, 79% of companies include the fight against fraud in a digital transformation project. However, their existing systems are manual, time-consuming and above all fallible… They do not represent a sufficient protection against fraud! Also, the rate of digital equipment is at the margin, with only 16% of companies using a technological solution to combat transfer fraud.
“Today, companies are being defrauded because they do not control their supplier data. This is the case because they rely on manual processes. By digitising these tasks, teams can implement more secure and streamlined processes.” – Baptiste Collot – CEO at Trustpair
Digitisation: Finance departments lag behind
While the low rate of equipment in Finance Departments may be surprising, it can be explained above all by the emergence of a new market, given that the context illustrates an equipment market and not a replacement market. A certain amount of evangelization work needs to be done with companies to democratize these solutions.
“There is a strong need for reassurance and education on the market. While the first companies to implement anti-fraud solutions were innovative, the market is gradually evolving towards a more holistic and mature dynamic.” – Baptiste Collot – President of Trustpair
Companies are concerned about the transfer fraud issues that threaten them, and know what they need to do to protect themselves from these risks. But between theory and practice, barriers and reticence remain, slowing down companies in their path towards high security of their processes and data. Indeed, 14% of respondents intend to invest more in digitalisation projects in 2021 to combat credit transfer fraud.
Moving from an awareness program and initial security measures to digitization of processes will be the next challenge for finance departments.
“Today, companies are aware that they need to take action, implement controls, and that these initiatives are part of a project to accelerate digitisation. A lot must be done to publicise these solutions, give credence to their potential and provide useful feedback to market players.” – Elodie Bananier – Senior Manager at Accenture
Want to know more about the results? Download the Fraud 2021 Trustpair study!
About the Fraud 2021 Survey :
The survey was conducted from December 7, 2020 to January 22, 2021 among 165 CFOs and Treasury Directors of French SMEs and large groups. The survey was carried out by administering a questionnaire via the Internet and by telephone through the Spoking Polls platform.
