The vast majority of finance professionals believe that payments fraud will become a bigger threat to the sector over the next couple of years, yet hardly any feel that there is currently an effective answer to the problem, a TD Bank survey shows.
Of 283 attendees at the recent Nacha payments conference quizzed by TD, 88% expect payment fraud to grow as a threat in the near future but only one in 10 think there is an effective solution already out there.
And increasing vigilance over payments security will be essential as more organizations shift their payment activities from paper to electronic, says TD. Around 20% of survey respondents say their companies already have a paper-free payments system in place. Meanwhile, 32% expect to implement this in their companies within the next one to two years, and 42% believe becoming paper-free will require three or more years.
Rick Burke, head, corporate products and services, TD Bank, says: "Corporate treasurers need to have conversations with their banking partners to establish controls within their payments processing and accounts, and find better ways to implement layered defenses and detect fraudulent activity."
Although they are several years from incorporating entirely paper-free transactions, nearly half of respondents say that real-time payments processing is critical to their business. An additional 47% view the capability as nice to have, but not yet essential. Respondents also flag self-service and mobile commercial finance capabilities are a priority, with 74% identifying these as very important to their business.