Cybersecurity must be baked into FS tech investments

In PwC’s 2023 Global CEO Global Survey, banking and capital markets CEOs are far more likely than peers in other sectors to worry about cyber risks. They also see acute threats to profitability from changing consumer behaviour (cited by 68% of bank CEOs, well above the overall average). To respond to the latter threat, bank CEOs say they will invest significantly in technology like AI and cloud solutions over the next 12 months, along with automating processes and systems, with the goal of improving the customer experience. So far, so good.

Yet, even though these CEOs are rightly focused on the customer, there’s a very real chance their organisations—where trust is a premium—won’t get the cyber equation correct. Why is that?

All too often, banks treat these imperatives—investing in technology and defending against cyber threats—separately. Teams often come together on a tech-implementation project, but they may not think through the cyber risks until the latter stages of development. That approach solves one problem but exacerbates another, because digitisation and data create worrying new points of vulnerability. 

A more coherent approach is to bake cyber defences into all new technology and automation investments from the very start. In the world of cloud computing, not only does cyber need to be integrated, but institutions need to fundamentally change the way they think about technology and risk. For CEOs, the challenge is to ensure that teams are staffed with cross-functional expertise and have an explicit mandate to build a cloud-appropriate cyber framework that is integrated into new projects at all stages (even if it extends the initial development timeline). In that way, banks can address both challenges in a complementary manner, improving performance through technology while also becoming more cyber-secure. That’s the only way to improve the customer experience while also retaining trust.