Peter A Clarke

The Commonwealth Attorney General has announced a formal reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission, made on 11 December 2017, of class actions and litigation funders.  The heading of the media release leaves little doubt on what is on the Government’s mind: Protecting Australians from exorbitant legal fees.  It is hard to see class actions being abolished given Read the rest of this entry »

MacAfee has released a 2018 Threats Predictions Report.  While the European Banking Authority has released its risk assessment report. In that report the EBA found:

•  cyber risk and data security were identified as the “main drivers for increasing operational risk”
• 55% of banks “foresee an increase in operational risk in their bank”. This is an increase from 43% last year and 35% in 2015.
• most EU banks are still taking steps to address the weaknesses stemming from the technology-driven evolution to their industry.
• because of the reliance on  IT platforms, digitalised product channels for banking services, outsourcing to third-party providers  42 % of the respondents stated that cyber risk and data security is the main cause of increasing operational risk
• that cyber risk is  one of the key risks threatening data integrity and business continuity in the financial system”. It also said that banks are facing increasing complex cyber attacks from “intruders trying to gain unauthorised access to critical systems and data”.
• cyber risks pose operational, legal and reputational risks including business interruptions, data and software loss, cyber extortion, fraud, breach of privacy, network failure liabilities and damages to physical assets, which can result in financial losses
• the growing use of third party services by financial services may impact on the ability of institutions to manage their risks such as strategic, reputational, compliance and operational risk and that is a cause of increased systemic risk. The EBA noted that these risks should be mitigated adequately by banks and embedded in a sound and efficient risk management policy.  That means money and effort.

The EBA produced a draft guidance designed to support the adoption of cloud-based solutions by banks earlier this year. Interestingly the EBA Read the rest of this entry »