Press & Media
David Fapohunda: How to Lead Cloud Migration in Regulated Financial Firms
In 2026, new DORA supervisory findings from the European Banking Authority revealed critical gaps in cloud resilience across regulated financial institutions, particularly around documentation, recovery testing, and hyperscaler concentration risk. This article examines why cloud migration programs often fail at the governance and framing stage, and how regulatory expectations are reshaping what “resilience” truly means in modern financial infrastructure.
David Fapohunda: How Boardroom Expectations Around AI Governance is Evolving
The era of AI governance living comfortably in the management layer is over. For years, boards were briefed, questions were asked, and executives returned to their teams to figure it out. That arrangement has collapsed. In the space of a few months, the conversation has shifted from whether boards should engage with AI to: how, how often, and with what level of personal accountability attached to the answer.
David Fapohunda: How to Optimize Contact Center Operations at Scale
Contact centers in financial services are emerging as a major governance and cost liability, with regulatory enforcement increasingly tied to unresolved customer journeys rather than isolated service metrics. This article explores why technology-first transformation efforts often fail, and how restructuring operations around customer journeys, repeat contact rates, and governance-first AI deployment leads to significantly stronger outcomes in both efficiency and customer experience.
David Fapohunda: How to Scale AI-Driven Fraud Detection Capabilities
Modern fraud is increasingly adaptive and AI-driven, forcing financial institutions into a real-time arms race where speed, data quality, and infrastructure determine defensive capability. This article explores how unified data pipelines, human-informed AI systems, and scalable cloud-native architectures work together to improve fraud detection accuracy, reduce false positives, and enable institutions to prevent threats before they materialise.
David Fapohunda: Servant Leadership in the Agentic AI Era
As financial institutions accelerate AI adoption, leadership effectiveness is emerging as a critical factor in successful transformation. This article explores how servant leadership principles can guide organisations through AI-driven change by strengthening clarity, trust, and shared purpose. It examines how leaders can empower teams to transition into oversight-focused roles, establish intent-driven autonomy, and embed trust as a core operational behaviour within AI-enabled systems.
Modernizing Operations for Efficiency and Customer Value
Many financial institutions still treat operational efficiency and customer experience as competing priorities, but modern transformation efforts show they are increasingly interdependent. This article explores how shifting from functional hierarchies to customer journey–based operating models, supported by unified data and simplified processes, enables organisations to reduce friction, improve scalability, and deliver stronger customer outcomes. It also examines how AI is expected to augment rather than replace operational roles in the near term.
David Fapohunda: Boardroom Strategies for De-Risking Digital Transformation
Despite significant investment in digital transformation, financial institutions often fail to achieve proportional productivity gains due to misalignment between technology initiatives and business outcomes. This article explores how embedding risk, governance, and cross-functional collaboration into transformation programs from the outset enables organisations to deliver measurable value. It also highlights the importance of aligning people, process, and data to ensure sustainable and scalable change in highly regulated environments.
Fraud’s getting digital: 8 points to watch in 2018
Fraud in financial services is becoming increasingly digital, automated, and complex, driven by advances in AI, synthetic identity creation, and faster payment systems. This report outlines key emerging risks including account takeover, internal fraud, and cross-account exploitation, while highlighting how regulatory developments such as GDPR, PSD2, and evolving authentication standards are reshaping fraud risk management strategies. It emphasises the need for integrated, agile operating models that combine fraud detection, cybersecurity, and real-time analytics.
Why do we still talk about ATO?
Account takeover (ATO) remains a persistent and costly challenge across financial services and payments, despite significant advances in fraud prevention technologies. This webinar explores why ATO continues to rise, examining current industry challenges, transformation-led fraud management approaches, and the role of behavioural biometrics and machine learning in strengthening authentication and reducing fraud losses.
Breaking Down Authentication Siloes & Preventing Account Takeover
As data breaches continue to expose large volumes of personal information, financial institutions are increasingly adopting advanced authentication methods to prevent account takeover and strengthen identity verification. This session examines the limitations of siloed, cross-channel authentication strategies and explores how omni-channel authentication orchestration and risk-based approaches can unify fraud prevention, improve security, and enhance customer protection.
The Reality of Instant Payments” Webinar Series to Address Fraud Risks Faced by Financial Institutions
As instant payments continue to reshape the financial services landscape, fraud risk is accelerating across registration, authentication, and transaction layers in real time. This webinar series explores the unique challenges of fraud in faster payment environments, highlighting how financial institutions must balance customer experience with robust, network-aware fraud controls. It also shares industry perspectives on real-time fraud prevention strategies and best practices for securing instant payment systems at scale.
Agenda final 2014
This document outlines the agenda for a financial crime and fraud conference held in 2014, featuring industry speakers and sessions focused on payments security, fraud prevention, and regulatory trends in financial services.
PAYMENTS 2014 On Site Guide
Event guide and presentation deck from the Payments 2014 conference held in Orlando, FL, covering industry sessions and agenda overview.
Fraud And Payments Channels: Onsite Coverage
At NACHA Payments 2014, financial institutions faced a dual reality of improving fraud detection capabilities alongside rapidly evolving and increasingly sophisticated threats. While advanced behavioural analytics were beginning to reduce fraud losses through anomaly detection, emerging risks such as compromised data aggregators, credential reuse, and mobile remote deposit capture (MRDC) fraud highlighted significant gaps in regulatory alignment and industry readiness. The discussion emphasised how fraud is becoming harder to detect as attackers leverage richer datasets and multi-account exploitation techniques.
Thought Leadership
AI Agents That Use Computers Like Humans: A Strategic Inflection Point
OpenAI’s Operator introduces a new class of agentic AI capable of interacting directly with software interfaces using a screen, mouse, and keyboard, marking a shift from advisory AI tools to autonomous execution systems. This article explores how Computer-Using Agents (CUAs) enable automation across fragmented enterprise workflows, and outlines how organisations should adapt through targeted pilot programs, workflow identification, and updated governance models for agent-driven operations.
Blockchain + Artifical Intelligence; The Building Blocks for Preventing Bank Fraud
As financial institutions adopt increasingly open and interconnected digital platforms, traditional fraud detection approaches are being challenged by the scale and sophistication of cyber and financial crime. This article explores how combining AI-driven anomaly detection with blockchain-based distributed data systems could form the foundation of next-generation financial crime prevention, while also examining the technical, governance, privacy, and latency challenges that currently limit real-world deployment.
New Solutions to Mitigate New Account Fraud
Synthetic identity fraud and identity theft continue to present significant risks to financial institutions, driven by increasing digitalisation, expanded data availability, and evolving criminal techniques. This article outlines a range of data-centric prevention and detection approaches, including behavioural analytics, device intelligence, machine learning models, biometric authentication, third-party data sources, and threat intelligence, highlighting how institutions can strengthen monitoring across the full customer lifecycle and improve early identification of fraudulent activity.
Unprecedented Increase in ID Theft and Synthetic Identity Related Fraud
Nearly $16 billion was lost to identity theft affecting over 15 million U.S. victims in 2016, reflecting the escalating scale and sophistication of modern fraud activity. This article examines the rise of synthetic identity fraud as a major contributor to new account fraud across financial services, driven by digital channel expansion, personal data breaches, and weaknesses in traditional identity verification and credit reporting systems. It also explores the structural factors enabling fraud at scale, including regulatory gaps, cross-industry digitisation, and the increasing monetisation of stolen identities, while highlighting the need for stronger verification frameworks and data-driven fraud prevention strategies.
Cyber Safety & Security for the Family
Cybercrime continues to pose risks to individuals of all ages as increasing internet use exposes users to a range of online threats and vulnerabilities. This article highlights the importance of awareness and education in preventing cybercrime, emphasising the need for families to understand common risks and adopt basic protective measures. It underscores that effective prevention relies not only on technology safeguards but also on shared responsibility, communication, and proactive steps to improve personal and family-level cybersecurity hygiene.
FinCEN Unemployment Insurance Advisory - Continuing to Protect the Vulnerable
Financial institutions play a critical role in detecting and preventing unemployment insurance fraud, particularly in the context of increased government stimulus programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article explores FinCEN guidance on risk-based controls for identifying suspicious activity linked to UI payments, highlighting the need for enhanced monitoring, investigative processes, and reporting frameworks to address large-scale fraud schemes. It also outlines how financial institutions can leverage analytical models, velocity and behavioural detection techniques, and linked-data analysis to identify fraud patterns, disrupt fraud networks, and strengthen collaboration with regulators and law enforcement.
Board AI Governance: Steps to close the Awareness and Oversight gap
Board-level AI governance is becoming increasingly critical as organisations accelerate adoption but lag in structured oversight and risk management. This article examines findings from the NACD Implementing AI Governance report, highlighting the gap between board awareness of AI’s importance and the extent to which it is embedded into strategic decision-making and governance processes. It outlines a practical four-pillar framework covering strategy alignment, risk management, data and platform foundations, and board capability development, while emphasising common governance gaps such as limited accountability, insufficient risk integration, and inconsistent board-level reporting on AI.
The Importance of Politeness in AI
Human-centred AI and responsible interaction design are explored through the lens of everyday politeness toward AI systems, arguing that courteous behaviour can reinforce empathy, professionalism, and social norms in both children and adults. The article reflects on how treating AI respectfully may help shape healthier human habits, support trust in human–technology interactions, and ensure that efficiency in digital systems does not come at the expense of civility and shared values.