Asia's Second Annual Online Security Survey Results Announced by ReadiMinds

State of Online Security in Financial Institutions in Asia - 2009

[Asian Financial Institutions not aggressive enough!
FIs thinking about future challenges.
Real-Time Fraud Detection & Prevention gaining ground!
Increasing concerns over inconvenience of Hardware Tokens!
Software 2FA demand rising!]

ReadiMinds is pleased to announce the results of its second annual Asian online security survey titled "State of Online Security in Financial Institutions in Asia - 2009". Survey* respondents represented a cross section of Asia's major banks. The survey primarily focused on the issues pertaining to transaction security, online financial fraud prevention and real-time risk mitigation.

Key findings of this survey are:

• Almost all the respondents rated their own financial insitution's ability to counter online security threat as "average".
• External sources are the fastest growing area of online fraud.
• Only 20% of respondents indicated having implemented some form of fraud detection and prevention technology.
• Almost all respondents reported that their financial institutions were victims of online fraud(s) during the year.
• Increasing concerns raised about the inconveninence of hardware tokens. New "Software 2FA" technology namely device finger-printing is increasingly gaining ground in Asia, due to its effectiveness, convenience and lower cost.
• Asian financial institutions are still taking "piecemeal/fraud-wise/channel-wise" approach to tackling online frauds, as opposed to taking holistic financial crime surveillance approach across channels. However, respondents showed strong desire to implement enterprise wide holistic cross-channel financial fraud prevention moving forward.
• Almost all respondents preferred "real-time" fraud detection & prevention as opposed to traditional "cooling period/review period" based approach.
• Over 80% respondents claimed to have known that an integrated multi-layered security consisting of stronger user authentication, cross-channel fraud detection [& false positive reduction] and risk-based transaction authorization is the strongest form of defence against identity theft and online financial frauds - both traditional and emerging ones.
• 75% respondents rated efforts of their financial institutions to tackle online branch banking frauds as "average".
• Identity theft followed by account and fund transfer frauds are the biggest branch banking fraud concerns.
• Audit is still the primary mechanism being used to detect branch banking frauds.
• 50% of respondents felt a Real-Time Enterprise Risk Monitoring & Mitigation System, being part of a regulatory and compliance framework, could have helped minimize risk crisis in the financial industry.
• 80% of respondents would like to implement real-time operational risk monitoring & mitigation framework.
• 80% of respondents rated their organization's readiness to tackle trading desk related frauds as "average".
• Online Financial Fraud Prevention was rated the top most priority "security and risk" agenda during the year.
• There is an increasing desire to take a holistic approach to transaction security, that of preventing financial crime across channels across enterprise.
• FIs starting to think about the future challenges as well: After implementing "point" solutions that could only tackle limited security challenges for a single channel like identity theft, financial institutions are now realising they actually need a future-safe investment-proof fraud prevention solution that could grow to meet challenges posed by emerging online frauds across channels.

ReadiMinds CEO Naren Nagpal added:

"It is becoming obvious that there is increased awareness of the importance of transaction security and online financial fraud prevention in Asian financial services industry. There exists an excellent opportunity to leap frog and adopt real-time, integrated, multi-layered, cross-channel Financial Fraud Prevention as opposed to doing a catch-up with traditional piecemeal fraud/channel-wise approaches".


*Note to Editor: Survey was conducted through the web, phone and personal interviews by ReadiMinds - a specialist software company focusing on transaction security and online financial fraud prevention. Countries covered included Singapore, Hongkong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Contact for more information, or interview:
Ms. Manjula B A