PODCAST | Absa’s push to fight fraud, scams through governance, risk and compliance

The place of governance, risk and compliance in reducing bank-related fraud is the focus in this edition of the Business Day Spotlight .

Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by Absa’s Fatima Newman, chief compliance officer, and Prabashni Naidoo, group chief governance officer.

According to the team, banks are eager to adopt progressive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the customer experience.

However, they must balance this drive for innovation with rigorous safety protocols.

While technology advances have created opportunity for banks to grow their digital offering, they have also enabled hackers and criminals to commit fraud and scams faster, more cheaply, more efficiently and at larger scale, with banks and other finance houses being prime targets for breaches.

Against this backdrop, the bank says cybercriminals now operate within organised, corporate-like structures using advanced tools such as AI.

To defend against these systemic threats, which affect the industry in equal measure, financial institutions must abandon competitive silos and actively collaborate with one another and industry bodies such as the Banking Association SA (BASA).

Governance teams are integrated early in the design phase of tech projects to ensure that new tools do not expose the bank or its clients to undue risk.