The FStech Podcast

Despite improvements in technology, financial service institutions (FSIs) still need to keep their systems safe from a range of threats including cyber hacks, malware data breaches.

With a spate of high-profile outages and cyberattacks, financial services companies need to make sure their systems are as secure as possible and ensure all their employees are on the same page when it comes to remaining vigilant against bad actors.

In this FStech podcast Hadi Ghanbari, Assistant Professor of Information Systems at Aalto University School of Business, takes a closer look at some of the challenges facing FSIs when dealing with cybersecurity issues.

He also looks at some of the ways in which FSIs should approach their cybersecurity strategy and what steps they need to take to keep themselves and their customers safe.

As financial services increasingly embrace SaaS and cloud-based technologies, they face emerging threats to safeguard sensitive customer data. While comprehensive IT security measures are essential, the active involvement of employees across organisations is pivotal in ensuring the protection of sensitive data.

In this insightful discussion, FStech editor Jonathan Easton engages with Rich Vibert, co-founder and CEO of Metomic, to delve into strategies empowering financial firms to encourage their employees to champion robust data security. The conversation explores the synergy between technology and human involvement to establish a human-centric approach to data security, ultimately enhancing the most powerful and scalable prevention mechanism: the employees.

Rich sheds light on the advantages of achieving clear visibility, discovery, and classification of risks, coupled with the implementation of automated security policies. This approach enables the human firewall, fortifying financial services firms with a defence-in-depth data security strategy.

This conversation was originally recorded as a video interview, which can be watched in full on the FStech website.

Consumers are increasingly aware of their carbon footprint and are making purchasing decisions based on the perceived ethics of firms they deal with. This also applies to their banks, insurance companies and pension firms.

The financial services industry cannot escape this demand for greener services and pressure is growing on FSIs to be fully transparent with their data and reporting. Should their ESG credentials fall short of the mark, they risk losing the trust of customers or coming under scrutiny from the regulator.

In this FStech podcast Shipra Gupta, Investments Stewardship lead at Scottish Widows, talks about some the challenges facing financial services institutions when dealing with ESG issues.

She also examines some of the ways FSIs should tackle their ESG strategy and make sure it makes an impact.

Financial services institutions in 2024 face immense pressure to deliver seamless digital banking experiences across all channels.

Customer expectations have reached an all-time high, with a recent McKinsey survey revealing that 89 per cent of consumers now engage in mobile banking and demand a consistent experience across physical, web, and app interactions.

But while consumers demand excellence, aging infrastructure, data silos, and security risks make this level of omnichannel experience delivery a monumental challenge for financial institutions.

In this FStech podcast, Jaspreet Sandhu, solutions engineer for FSI and UKI Healthcare at Riverbed Technology talks about how FIs can unlock the future of banking through seamless digital experiences while ensuring their systems still meet the highest bar for security and compliance.

Sandhu also discusses the transformative potential of AI for omnichannel personalisation, while also examining how FIs can overcome obstacles to gaining a unified view of customers, and better compete with digitally native FinTech challengers.

In this FStech Podcast, Michael Bratton, Principal Consultant at Riskonnect, joins FStech Editor Jonathan Easton to examine the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) - what it is, its impact on the financial services sector, and what financial institutions should do to ensure their compliance.

In an in-depth presentation on the subject, Bratton drills into the details of why the European Commission is introducing this long-awaited piece of legislation and its proposed benefits for the financial services sector. He also discusses how financial services institutions can and should be using this as an excellent opportunity to review their operational resilience, continuity planning and risk management.

The podcast also includes a conversation between FStech and Riskonnect's Bratton looking at the implications of DORA for the way financial institutions manage their third-party relationships, how the regulation accounts for the rapid pace of technological change and its impact on operational risk, strategies for how financial institutions can ensure DORA compliance without sacrificing agility, and much more.

This FStech Podcast was originally recorded in 2023 as a webinar which can be accessed in the show notes on the podcast page.

Introduced at the end of July, the Consumer Duty is a game-changing new set of rules and guidance for financial services institutions in the UK, and companies must look to modernise their systems in adherence with it in mind to create the best customer experience possible.

Event Driven Architecture (EDA) is a powerful tool that can help firms meet the requirements of the Consumer Duty. EDA is a software design pattern that allows applications to communicate with each other by exchanging events - messages that describe what has happened, but not how or why. Data streaming is a key component of EDA that allows businesses to respond to events and changes in their data immediately.

This technological revolution can help to improve scalability, performance, and resilience, while also helping to make applications more flexible and adaptable to change.

In this FStech Podcast, Peter Pugh-Jones, director of Financial Services at Confluent, joins editor Jonathan Easton to discuss what all of this means for FSIs and how EDA can help them to transform customer experience in the era of Consumer Duty.

This FStech Podcast was originally recorded in 2023 as a video Q&A which can be accessed in the show notes on the podcast page.

Join FStech editor Jonathan Easton and Adam McLaughlin, global head of Financial Crime Strategy & AML SME at NICE Actimize and Graham Mackenzie, head of AML at the Law Society of Scotland as they look at the role Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs) play in the financial sector, and the challenges they face in complying with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulations.

Increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats from malicious actors are targeting financial institutions more and more, while ever-growing regulatory commitments - including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) introduced earlier this year - are compounding the number of issues which security professionals are having to keep on top of to ensure smooth operations.

It is for these reasons that top banks and other financial services institutions (FSIs) are turning to confidential computing - a term which refers to the use of advanced technology and security measures to protect sensitive financial data and computations from unauthorised access or exposure, even when it's being processed or analysed in external or third-party environments.

In this FStech podcast, FStech editor Jonathan Easton is joined by Dr. Richard Searle. vice president of Confidential Computing at Fortanix, to discuss why the technology is emerging as a critical component of modernising financial services and its ability to help FSIs strike a balance between innovation and security in an increasingly interconnected and data-driven industry.

After a long period of low interest rates, we've recently seen unprecedented rises in the Bank of England base rate to levels not seen in more than a decade causing significant concern for consumers which is being compounded by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

While the implications of current economic uncertainties are grabbing headlines for how household finances are being affected, underreported is the impact these uncertainties are having on businesses which might not be able to absorb these temporary operating cost increases.

In this latest FStech podcast John Griffiths, Market Engagement Director, Credit & Risk, Business Information at Experian, discusses the company's latest Affordability Report which outlines how rising costs have impacted small businesses in the UK and that while we may be seeing increasing interest rates, economic performance has been resilient, despite the challenges of the latter half of 2022.

The role of a financial institution's approach to customer experience (CX) is something which should never be underestimated. With the wealth of options available to customers in 2023 - whether they are consumers or enterprise - banks, insurers and other financial institutions need to look for ways that they can stand out from the crowd.

The latest State of Customer Experience Europe report from Genesys presents a fascinating and illuminating insight into this area and "uncovers how rapidly shifting customer preferences and declining satisfaction with digital channels are creating mounting business risks for organisations worldwide."

In this FStech podcast, David Porter, Industry Director of Global Financial Services at Genesys joins FStech Editor Jonathan Easton to discuss the report's findings, examine where banks are falling behind in CX and answer how they can set themselves apart by prioritising the wants and needs of their customers.