With the turmoil in the world and the ongoing activities of bad actors, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has been busy in 2023. Along with nearly constant updates to sanction lists, OFAC has penalized nine companies and one individual for violations to date in 2023. It has issued ten penalties, … Recent OFAC Actions, Penalties and New Video Series
If there’s one thing that businesses learned during the pandemic, it’s that supply chain matters. Mismanaging vendors can result in operational inefficiencies, higher costs and strained supplier relationships. One lousy customer interaction can have other happy vendors racing for the door. What’s more, 48 percent of businesses find it difficult to manage supplier costs, according … Overcoming Vendor Management Challenges with a Supplier Portal
Screening suppliers against lists of sanctioned businesses, individuals and entities is a critical part of the vendor management process. Sanctions are typically imposed by governments and international bodies, such as the United Nations (UN), to achieve foreign policy objectives, combat terrorism, prevent money laundering or address human rights concerns. The Office of Foreign Assets Control … How to Automate Sanctions Screening
Cleaning your vendor master file is an ongoing and vital project to avoid errors, payment delays, regulatory violations and fraud. Part I and Part II of this series outlined the first five steps of a thorough plan. Here in Part III are the final recommended steps. Steps six through nine include sanction list reviews, bank … 9 Steps to Cleaning the Vendor Master File – Part III
Vendor master files are dynamic. Organizations add new vendors and should inactivate old vendors. Active vendors change addresses and bank accounts, merge or acquire other vendors. Consequently, vendor master files require upkeep. Here are steps to cleaning the vendor master file. Part one of this two-part series on VMF cleansing addressed the first two of … 9 Steps to Cleaning the Vendor Master File – Part II
Vendor masters are not static files. New vendors are added regularly. Old vendors need to be inactivated. And vendors send change requests for contacts, address and bank account information. The vendor master file (VMF) is a lot to keep up. And many organizations do not keep it up regularly. Vendor files need cleansing. There are … 9 Steps to Cleaning the Vendor Master File – Part I
Bank account verification (BAV), defined here, is essential control to protect organizations from unauthorized access to their funds, avoid costly payment mistakes and fraud, and enhance business relationships and the overall security of financial systems. BAV is crucial for businesses for several reasons: Fraud prevention: Verifying bank account ownership helps organizations avoid fraudulent activities, such … Why Bank Account Verification Is Important
What Is Bank Account Verification? Bank account verification is the process of confirming the authenticity of bank account information. That includes ownership as well as account and bank routing numbers. The primary purpose of bank account verification is to prevent fraudulent activities such as identity theft, money laundering, and unauthorized access to funds. By verifying … Bank Account Verification Defined
Criminals are compromising emails to steal money from businesses, governments and institutions. Any organization can be a target: businesses of any size as well as health care organizations, education, and local and state governments. Recent headline cases include Ubiquiti Networks, Toyota Boshoku Corporation and Scoular Company. And the U.S. territory Puerto Rico offers a classic … A Classic Case of Vendor Email Compromise
Organizations are under siege by bad actors across the globe who are determined to rip them off. But new software that verifies the ownership of a bank account can help businesses mitigate their risk. Threats to information security top the list of operations risk, a new survey by Risk.com finds. Cyber risk – in one … How to Mitigate Cyber Risk with Bank Account Validation
Who would violate OFAC sanctions? Few intentionally. Perhaps a company already doing business with a foreign company before a sanction is put in place. Or just a company without an adequate program to review sanction lists regularly, whether against vendors or customers. (And maybe there are a very few too anxious to grow business in … A Cautionary Tale of OFAC Violations and Mitigations
Are you required to change your password every quarter? Do you have to include special characters in your passwords? It is annoying but also easy to update your password, right? Just add a “1” at the end of it. Then, next month or quarter, change the “1” to a “2,” and so on. Unfortunately, such cleverness … Don’t Skimp on Annoying Password Rules
