CHERRY HILL, N.J., Feb. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Treasury and
finance professionals anticipate more operational challenges in
2019 than in previous years, according to a recent survey conducted
by TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank®, at the 2018
Association for Financial Professionals Annual Conference in
Chicago, Illinois. The risk of
payments fraud/cybersecurity topped professionals' list of
concerns, with 44 percent naming it their top operational
challenge, a 14 percent year-over-year increase.
The ability to adapt to or process faster/electronic payments is
an obstacle for 37 percent of survey respondents, also rising 14
percent year-over-year. This concern is likely to cause some
anxiety for finance professionals, as commercial payments continue
evolving. In fact, the majority (60 percent) of respondents expect
to see the largest amount of growth this year within faster or
real-time processing, an 8 percent increase from last
year.
Despite Industry Uncertainties, Blockchain has
Benefits
Unsurprisingly, technology continues to influence
treasury operations, and the majority of survey respondents (90
percent) feel that blockchain/distributed ledger technology will
have some type of positive effect on the payments industry.
The top impact of blockchain/distributed ledger technology is
its ability to create stronger audit trails (29 percent),
respondents said. Additional positive outcomes include:
- Speeding up the payments process (22 percent)
- Improving efficiency of cross-border payments (21 percent)
- Reducing payments fraud (18 percent)
"Blockchain technology has broad implications for the commercial
payments space, from speeding up settlements to securing
cross-border transactions," said Rick
Burke, Head of Corporate Products and Services at TD Bank.
"Even though much of the industry has a baseline understanding that
blockchain can evolve and improve payments, the varied responses
indicate that the technology's specific capabilities and
implications are still a great unknown for many finance
professionals."
Despite the hype around new innovations like blockchain, finance
professionals appear to be split on the use of another technology
type to facilitate payments: open APIs. Fifty percent of
respondents claim that their organization currently uses or is in
the process of integrating open APIs into company operations, while
49 percent do not use open APIs and nearly a quarter of that group
does not have plans to do so in the future.
With so much change on the horizon, companies are investing in
training strategies for several facets of treasury operations.
Survey respondents said their organization has training strategies
specifically for data and analytics (45 percent), AI and automation
(26 percent) and blockchain (14 percent).
Fraud Casts a Larger Cloud
As the risk of payments
fraud/cybersecurity threats is top of mind across the industry,
there comes an expectation from 98 percent of respondents that
financial institutions should assist organizations with protecting
against fraud and cybercrime. More than half (55 percent) said
financial institutions can help them better protect against fraud
and cybercrime through education – although 48 percent of
respondents admitted that their company does not have any in-house
cyber fraud prevention training. Additionally, one-in-four finance
professionals surveyed feel that banks should offer greater
controls on transactions and 18 percent state they want risk or
process reviews.
"As global fraud and cybersecurity incidents continue to rise,
corporations recognize the need to bolster their protective
measures and improve employee understanding of how to safeguard
finances," said Burke. "To achieve real success, organizations and
their employees need to be better able to identify and deter fraud
attempts. This should be a responsibility shared by businesses and
their financial institutions, beginning with better
education."
Survey Methodology
TD Bank polled finance
professionals at the 2018 AFP Conference held Nov. 5-6, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois. A total of 406 responses were
collected from industry professionals, including business end-users
and financial and technology services organizations.
About TD Bank, America's Most Convenient
Bank®
TD Bank, America's Most Convenient
Bank, is one of the 10 largest banks in the U.S., providing more
than 9 million customers with a full range of retail, small
business and commercial banking products and services at more than
1,200 convenient locations throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic,
Metro D.C., the Carolinas and Florida. In addition, TD Bank and its
subsidiaries offer customized private banking and wealth management
services through TD Wealth®, and vehicle financing and
dealer commercial services through TD Auto Finance. TD Bank is
headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J.
To learn more, visit www.tdbank.com. Find TD Bank on Facebook
at www.facebook.com/TDBank and on Twitter
at www.twitter.com/TDBank_US.
TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, is a member of TD Bank
Group and a subsidiary of The Toronto-Dominion Bank of Toronto, Canada, a top 10 financial services
company in North America. The
Toronto-Dominion Bank trades on the New
York and Toronto stock
exchanges under the ticker symbol "TD". To learn more,
visit www.td.com.
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SOURCE TD Bank