Cyber Crime
MEDIA RELEASE
Crime Stoppers welcomes “community version” of powerful enterprise payment verification system to protect small businesses from payment fraud.
At a time when Australian small business has never been more vulnerable to cyber fraud and scams, Crime Stoppers welcomes the launch of an anti-cybercrime initiative to help the Australian small business community protect itself from cyber scams and payment fraud.
Australian Fintech company, eftsure, has developed a community version of its powerful enterprise payment verification system, as part of “giving back” during this tough time.
Crime Stoppers believes this ‘Check who you’re paying service” will help to fight cybercrime by allowing any business, in just a few clicks, to verify who they’re paying before they pay. It’s not the full enterprise version but within a few easy steps it will protect small business from fraud.
The Problem:
Cybercrime is a trillion dollar-a-year global problem and has been estimated to cost Australian businesses nearly $30BN per annum*.
COVID19 has given cyber scammers and fraudsters new opportunities with pandemic themed content and angles of attack, one of which is the vulnerability of staff working from home and the heightened risk of dispersed finance teams due to weakened financial control environments, non-routine processes and IT security.
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is the fastest growth area of cybercrime which typically results in financial loss through payment fraud.
In a digitally connected world and supply chain, where identity theft is easy, it’s difficult to know who is on the other end of the computer sending you critical information such as bank account details for payment.
Fraudsters are exploiting a gap in the banking system which does NOT MATCH payee names to account numbers at time of processing. The “Check who you’re paying” service DOES MATCH payee names to account numbers to ensure the funds will be received by the intended recipient.
The Solution:
Now Australian small business owners can use a “free community version” of the “Check who you’re paying” service to conduct similar checks of supplier information that eftsure provides to its enterprise customers.
eftsure’s Know-Your-Payee enterprise solution protects over $3 billion of payments each month.
Peter Price AM, Crime Stoppers CEO said: “We are very pleased to assist in bringing this opportunity to the business community. Business is challenging at the moment and earnings need to be tightly managed and protected. Businesses, now more than ever, can’t afford to lose money through deception. This system enables a free verification check of who they are sending their hard-earned cash to.”
PwC’s 2020 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey reveals that over a third of Australian organisations experienced fraud or another type of economic crime within the last two years. 22 per cent of Australian respondents to the survey reported they lost over $7 million in that time period, and some lost more than $140 million. Further, Australian respondents reported 56 per cent of incidents were perpetrated by external factors including hackers and organised crime syndicates, higher than the global result of 39 per cent.
Mark Rigby, PwC Consulting Partner, says “Both internal and external fraud are particularly prevalent during downturns. It’s important for organisations to be even more vigilant as they look to manage disruption to business processes, controls and working conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic that present malicious perpetrators greater opportunities to commit fraud via digital means.”
Founder of eftsure, Ian Mirels CA, said “Prompted by both the rapid rise in cybercrime and the increase in businesses vulnerability due to COVID-19, eftsure fast-tracked the development of the “Check Who You’re Paying” service to provide more businesses protection from invoice frauds and email scams at a time when they need it most. We see this as our ability to do some social good in this tough time. The service allows SME owners, start-ups and smaller finance teams access to certain functionality of eftsure’s cutting edge tech used by the top companies in Australia to prevent payment risk. While this service is being offered during the COVID-19 period its ongoing availability will be reassessed when teams across Australia move back to centralised work environment versus a dispersed one. The “Check who you’re paying” service is in line with eftsure’s long-term mission to help finance teams mitigate fraud through automation and streamlined processes.”
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For more information: NSW Crime Stoppers: Public Affairs: Cecelia Haddad: 0411 264 948
