Building Resilience: Treasury’s Role in Overcoming Cyber Risk and Fraud

Remote working, and greater reliance on technology, is leading to a rapid increase in cyber-attacks and fraud attempts. Royston Da Costa, Assistant Group Treasurer, Ferguson, and Michael Juen, Chief Customer Officer, BELLIN, a Coupa company, explain how treasurers can build greater resilience against these threats – and weigh up the costs of investing in cybersecurity against the risks of taking no action.

It’s no secret: cybercrime is on the rise and the nature of attacks is evolving rapidly. Add to this the way in which Covid-19 has exposed many companies’ inability to quickly understand where their cash is – and the fact that, for many, remote working and all its extra security risks is here to stay – it becomes clear that doing nothing to increase corporate resilience is even less of an option than it was before.

Fortunately, many businesses are alert to the need to respond. As the nexus of some of the most important financial relationships, processes, systems and data, perhaps the most appropriate corporate function to take the lead in this effort is corporate treasury. But this is not about treasury becoming overnight security experts. Instead, this is about treasurers learning to see ‘the big picture’ and exploring how different cybersecurity measures can protect the business and, importantly, helping others in the organisation to adopt the same clear-eyed approach to building long-term corporate resilience.

Defining resilience

For Royston Da Costa, Assistant Group Treasurer, Ferguson, there are the four pillars of post-Covid-19 corporate resilience. The first, cybersecurity, starts with personal responsibility but expands quickly into making sure the right enterprise-wide controls, processes and personnel are in place, he explains.

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