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Case Study: FP&A Group Overcomes Hurdles in Switch to SaaS Many mid-sized companies are reluctant to switch to SaaS. The Doe Run Company decided to switch anyway -- here's why.
May 06, 2013
Banks Must Innovate or Else, Experts Say The payments industry is at a crossroads, in which industry players are constantly challenged to innovate, all the while trying to decrease expenses and respond to changing regulations, said Janet Estep, president and CEO of NACHA. Estep emphasized that payments professionals—including those in corporate treasury—must focus on the possibilities of tomorrow, rather than just the needs of today.
Apr 23, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Fraud a Top Concern for Payments Pros SAN DIEGO-Charles Bretz, director, payment risk, Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), provided insights on the most prevalent cyberthreats to corporates and said account takeovers remain one of the most frequent methods that cybercriminals use.
Apr 23, 2013
AFP, Aite Release Guide on Managing Acquirer Relationships AFP and Aite Group released a new Payments Decision Guide at NACHA PAYMENTS 2013 Monday, presenting retail treasurers with strategies for managing payment acceptance costs and negotiating with merchant acquirers. The guide also provides details on the impact of industry mandates and legislative and court challenges to interchange fees and pricing.
Apr 22, 2013
Mobile Moves: Are Anonymous M-Payments Coming? Amazon has filed a patent for an “anonymous” mobile payments system, which would allow users to pay retailers without disclosing personal information. If the service comes to fruition, it could put to rest concerns about the security of mobile payments.
Apr 19, 2013
April 2013 Payments Newsletter This month, we speak with treasurers and fraud experts and get their reactions to the 2013 Payments Fraud & Control Survey, underwritten by J.P. Morgan. Also this month, a follow-up to the CAPP Exercise, financial professionals get a big win in an appeals court ruling, the UK payments industry appears to be headed for stricter regulation, and more.
Apr 18, 2013
Fraudsters Find Myriad Reasons to Target Large Corporates On the whole, fraudsters appear to be going after the companies with the most money and eschewing smaller targets. Even though these organizations have the resources to afford top-notch security, criminals believe they are more susceptible to being defrauded.
Apr 15, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: A Cautionary Tale for Corporates Corporates should think twice before refusing their banks' security recommendations. Otherwise they could be held liable when a fraud loss occurs, if a March 18 court decision is any indicator.
Apr 09, 2013
Mobility and FP&A There is growing speculation that mobile computing will have a major impact on the way organizations plan and manage resources. Surely, the implications for FP&A professionals are fascinating to contemplate.
Apr 05, 2013
Cyberattack Exercise Tests Treasurers’ Disaster Preparedness The Financial Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) conducted the latest Cyber Attack against Payment Processes (CAPP) Exercise on March 12-13 and 19-20, putting 67 corporate participants’ cybersecurity preparedness to the test.
Apr 02, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Massive DDoS Attack Disrupts Europe This week, we look at the broader implications of a major DDoS attack that disrupted Internet services for millions of Europeans. Also, a new information sharing center launches in the UK, and Chief Justice John Roberts gets hit with card fraud.
Apr 01, 2013
Regulatory Overhaul of UK Payments Systems Coming? The UK Government has proposed a regulatory overhaul of the nation’s payments systems. A new regulator would be put in place, supplanting the Payments Council and ending the industry’s current practice of self-regulation.
Mar 29, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Cybersecurity Best Practices for Corporates This week, we look at a new report from J.P. Morgan that discusses cybersecurity best practices and trends. Also this week, banks in Canada and South Korea are hit with DDoS attacks, and FinCEN applies money laundering rules to Bitcoins.
Mar 26, 2013
Obama Cyber Executive Order Stirs Things Up President Obama recently signed an executive order on cybersecurity, and issued Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 21, which revokes the 10-year-old Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD) 7. Treasurers, whose firms have seemingly fended off hackers by themselves, can take comfort in knowing that the federal government is starting to coordinate its efforts inside the Beltway and with the private sector.
Mar 20, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Are PCI Compliance Fines Fair? This week, a look at the Genesco/Visa Lawsuit, which marks the first time that a retailer has sued a credit card company for losses related to fraud. Also, President Obama meets with top CEOs to discuss cybersecurity, a new plan is unveiled that could allow the CIA and NSA to access the FinCEN database, and six major banks get hit with DDoS attacks.
Mar 17, 2013
Case Study: FP&A Group Switches to SaaS Like many organizations, the Doe Run Company recently installed software as a service (SaaS) to replace its spreadsheet-based planning and forecasting process. Most mid-sized business shy away from high-end enterprise planning solutions, but Doe Run reached a point where it had to switch to something else.
Mar 15, 2013
Case Study: Microsoft’s Treasury Mines Big Data and FP&A Data overload, or big data, can quickly turn from a blessing into a curse if you do not have the capability to mine it for useful information. This is where FP&A procedures and business intelligence data mining tools can come to the aid of a treasury team seeking useful information from the huge data volumes common in business today.
Mar 13, 2013
2013 Payments Fraud Survey: Fraud Incidents Decline A majority of organizations experienced actual or attempted payments fraud last year, but the incidence of fraud decreased for the third straight year, according to the 2013 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey, underwritten by J.P. Morgan. The positive trend is the result of corporate migration to electronic payment methods and a range of fraud mitigation strategies.
Mar 13, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Treasury Weighs Global Expansion, Cyber Risk This week, AFP Fraudwatch speaks with Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and a speaker at the upcoming CTC Corporate Treasurers Forum. Leiter shares his views on cyber risk, one of the most critical threats to companies expanding globally.
Mar 12, 2013
Case Study: Building a Treasury Team from Scratch Three years ago, Cardinal Health spun off its $4 billion medical device subsidiary. As a newly independent conglomerate of semi‐integrated businesses with a global manufacturing and sales footprint, CareFusion had all the complexities of a major multinational corporation. The challenge and opportunity was setting up an effective but lean treasury function within uncompromising deadlines.
Mar 06, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Oracle Issues Emergency Patch This week, we look at an emergency patch Oracle has issued to fix two security Java vulnerabilities that could leave corporate treasury groups and their companies vulnerable to hackers. Also this week, debit card fraud skimming losses on Canada’s Interac network hit a new low, and China claims that most of the hacks on two of its military websites came from the U.S.
Mar 05, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: China Linked to Cyberespionage Campaign This week: Mandiant's explosive cyberespionage report, a DDoS attack that aided in the theft of $900,000, an argument on why EMV won't solve all of our card fraud problems, and security flaws in ATMs that allow hackers to steal personal account numbers and... play Angry Birds.
Feb 26, 2013
AFP Fraudwatch: Will Obama’s Executive Order Improve Information Sharing? Last week, President Obama signed an executive order advocating for greater information sharing between the public and private sector on cyber threats. The executive order and any legislation that follows, while primarily focused on protecting critical infrastructure from cyber espionage, also might help corporates and banks fight cyberfraud.
Feb 19, 2013
CTPs Can Earn Credits for Joining Cyberattack Exercise Certified Treasury Professionals now have added incentive to participate in next month’s Cyber Attack against Payment Processes (CAPP) Exercise. In addition to testing their organizations’ cybersecurity preparedness, participants will have the opportunity to earn continuing education credits.
Feb 14, 2013
Mobile Moves: Looking to the Future of M-Payments Mobile payments are on everyone’s mind these days, but what will drive widespread adoption of them is still something of an enigma. A new whitepaper attempts to devise the possible trajectory of mobile payments over the next several years.
Feb 13, 2013

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