Risk Solutions

You’ve heard the horror stories about cybercrime and the damage it can inflict. Now you want to know what to do. What’s the best way to protect your business from a cyberattack?

Preparedness is your best defence, advises Darren Hopkins, a digital forensics expert and Partner at McGrathNicol.

A materials handling company believed they were doing the right thing. They protected their interests in the company's valuable equipment assets by registering on the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR).

Then two customers went broke, and administrators were appointed. They found out the hard way their PPS registrations were not up to scratch when they had great difficulties recovering their rented equipment.

The new Design and Distribution Obligations (DDO) for financial and credit products comes into force by the 5th of October 2021 and requires you to publicly document and justify why a product is consistent with the likely objectives, financial situation and needs of a class of consumers.

In the turmoil that ensues from a data breach, a necessary decision is what to do about notifying customers. The Federal Government’s Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme makes it clear that businesses have the responsibility to protect their customers in the aftermath of a cyberattack.

Where there’s money up for grabs, there’s the possibility of crime, and the property market is no exception. The vast sums of money associated with home sales make the conveyancing industry an ideal hunting ground for cybercriminals. With numerous fraud opportunities available pre-sale and post-sale, fraudsters are using increasingly sophisticated methods to intercept property fund payments, steal identities, forge documents and attack computer systems.

The ramifications are serious if a registration lapses due to non-renewal. A lapsed registration cannot be restored. It will simply disappear, never to be seen again. If you don’t have a warning system that notifies you of approaching expiries, you may not even be aware that it has gone. 
 

Open Data was a hot topic at the Equifax global SPARK conference, held in Sydney on 10 September 2019. With consumer, account and transaction data due to become available from February 2020, there's much interest in the implementation of the Consumer Data Right in Australia.

Here are the top eight questions put to a leaders' panel that included Fred Schebesta of Finder, Damir Cuca of Basiq, Kari Mastropasqua of Equifax, James Bligh of Data 61 and Alex Ortner of Allens.

The latest statistics1 by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) reveal that the construction industry is a leading contributor to Australia’s rising rate of company defaults2 (EXADs). The impact of failed construction companies is especially noticeable in the eastern seaboard, where insolvencies increased in Victoria by 78%, Queensland by 41% and NSW by 7% for the September 2019 quarter (QoQ).

It’s famously said ‘experience is the teacher of all things’, so where better to turn to for open banking lessons than the UK. With open-banking regulations in force since early 2018, much can be drawn from the British financial services sector’s experience.

From February 2020, Australia's new data-driven environment will change banking as we know it. The Consumer Data Right (CDR) has been legislated by the Government to give Australians greater control over their data.