Cyber-risk Quantification of Financial Technology

Tony Martin-Vegue

INTRODUCTION

Cyber-risk analysis in the financial-services sector is finally catching up with its older cousins in financial and insurance risk. Quantitative risk assessment methodologies, such as factor analysis of information risk (FAIR), are steadily gaining traction among information security and technology risk departments and the slow but steady adoption of analysis methods that stand up to scrutiny means cyber-risk quantification is truly at a tipping point. The heat map, risk matrix and “red/yellow/green” as risk communication tools are being recognised as flawed and it truly could not come at a better time. The field’s next big challenge is on the horizon: the convergence of financial services and rapidly evolving technologies – otherwise known as fintech – and the risks associated with it.

Fintech has, in many ways, lived up to the hype of providing financial services in a way that traditional firms have found too expensive, too risky, insecure or cost-prohibitive. In addition, many fintech firms have been able to compete with traditional financial services by offering better products, quicker delivery and much higher satisfaction. The rapid