Articles about Finance

"The nine scariest words in the English language are 'I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'" When Ronald Reagan uttered that statement, it was in general, but it could apply to one government organization in particular. Three letters -- I-R-S -- terrify many Americans. After all, the place can drag you (and all the relevant paperwork in your home) into an office for hours on end and, worse, throw you in jail if things aren't right. 

To its credit, the Internal Revenue Service periodically tries to change its reputation. That’s what it’s up to now with the new child tax credit. Did you hear about it? Given that Americans are getting "free" money from the government it has made relatively few headlines, although that may be simply that it passed back in March and has been pushed out of mind during the time since then. 

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New research from Akamai Technologies reveals that financial services firms suffered 3.4 billion credential stuffing attacks in 2020, a 45 percent year-on-year increase.

The report also observed nearly 6.3 billion web application attacks in 2020, with more than 736 million targeting financial services -- an increase of 62 percent from 2019. Over the past three years (2018-2020), DDoS attacks against the financial services sector grew by 93 percent.

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One of the problems the finance and banking sector has had during the pandemic has been reduced branch access and the inability to hold face-to-face meetings.

Identity specialist OneSpan has introduced a technology called Virtual Room. Using this, financial institutions and their customers can digitally review and sign documents together without having to combine multiple tools and apps.

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Almost three-quarters (74 percent) of banks and insurers have experienced a rise in cybercrime since the pandemic began according to a new report.

The findings released today by by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, the cyber and intelligence arm of BAE Systems, as part of The COVID Crime Index 2021 analyze the changing nature and impact of fraud, risk and cyber threats on UK and US financial institutions and consumers over the last 12 months

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining momentum as a vital business resource as organizations discover new use cases in their efforts to improve processes, increase efficiency and automate costly, manual tasks. Industries such as financial services are ideal for AI-driven applications and a related technology, machine learning (ML), because they can bolster customer service and leverage data to increase competitiveness.

AI includes software that’s designed to work in ways similar to the human brain, while machine learning encompasses programs that alter themselves based on data that’s fed into the programs in order to train them.

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Investing has gotten much more popular lately, thanks in part to the monumental rise of stocks like GameStop. Sadly, popular trading app Robinhood upset many of its users when it temporarily suspended trading of that stock. As a result, some of its customers jumped ship to competing services, such as Public.

Highlighting just how much Public has benefited from recent events, today, the company announces it has reached a major milestone -- 1 million users.

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Expense reporting can be a headache for both employees and businesses.

For employees, hanging onto receipts and filling out detailed paperwork is tedious and gets in the way of more productive tasks. It can be easy to lose track of important information needed to file reports correctly, especially for frequent travelers. Traditional reporting procedures put the onus on the employee to keep tabs on one more thing -- on top of doing their jobs.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major influence on spending and digital transformation plans in 2020 with many businesses speeding up plans to move to the cloud.

A new study from BillingPlatform of 300 CFOs and senior finance executives shows that this trend is likely to continue into 2021. Respondents named their three top priorities as investing in cloud-based technologies (42 percent), identifying ways to drive higher revenue through new products and services (41 percent) and reducing operating costs or capital investments (36 percent).

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There’s no doubt that 2020 has been a testing year for everyone. According to data from PwC, 53 percent of CFOs expect a decrease in revenue and/or profits of up to 25 percent as a direct result of COVID-19. For many tech startups, that’s the difference between staying alive and closing for good.

With such uncertainty in the air, leadership teams have had to act fast and rethink their entire strategy.

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A new Data Risk Report from Varonis reveals that an average financial services employee has access to nearly 11 million files and for larger companies the number is 20 million.

This level of exposure means that if just one employee clicks on a phishing email there is potentially a huge amount of sensitive information at the hacker's fingertips.

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The risk of cyberattack and loss of data is very real for all companies and it's something that's starting to be a concern for investors too.

New research from security ratings company BitSight and Solactive, a German index engineering firm, shows that company's cybersecurity performance is an indicator of its business performance.

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The financial services sector is experiencing significant commercial disruption coupled with rapid innovation as established institutions strive to become more agile and meet evolving customer demand. As a result, financial services organizations are undergoing rapid digital transformation to meet changing customer needs and preferences, and to compete with a new generation of digital-native competitors. Hybrid cloud environments play a key role in this strategy, allowing greater speed, flexibility, and visibility over application delivery than on-premises data centers while also reducing costs.

But the move to hybrid cloud introduces new challenges as well. So, as financial services organizations plot their strategy for transformation, firms must make critical technical decisions about the clouds and form factors best suited to host their hybrid environment. They also need to consider how they will secure web applications against evolving threats such as ransomware, data theft, and DDoS attacks through measures such as DDoS protection and using a Zero Trust model. At the same time, they must also maintain regulatory compliance, governance, and auditability across complex, fast-evolving infrastructures.

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Businesses must constantly adjust to innovation. This year, American companies have incorporated new digital currency trends like never before. From cryptocurrency to AI, these offerings have revolutionized how employee payments operate.

Here are the top five trends in employee payments.

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Account takeover attacks and online fraud of all types have skyrocketed during the pandemic as consumers have shifted almost all of their most important transactions to digital channels.

We spoke to David Vergara, senior director of security product marketing anti-fraud and digital identity solutions company OneSpan, to discover more about the emerging technologies that banks are beginning to use in the fight against fraud, including artificial intelligence, real-time risk analytics and behavioral biometrics.

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The Linux Foundation is today announcing the formation of the FinOps Foundation to promote the discipline of cloud financial management through best practices, education, and standards

With support from founding members Apptio, Cloudeasier, Cloudsoft, CloudWize, Contino, Kubecost, Neos, Opsani, ProsperOps, Timspirit and VMware, the foundation is set to increase awareness and offer education for professionals in the emerging discipline of FinOps.

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