WMA Holds 18th Annual Financial Crime Conference – 28th January 2016

Over 150 Professionals came together today (28 January) at the Wealth Management Association’s (WMA) 18th annual conference dedicated to Financial Crime.  Delegates heard from experts on a host of issues from Anti-Money Laundering, Tackling Bribery and Corruption, Cybercrime, Market Abuse and Data Protection.

Held at the Guildhall in London, the community had the opportunity to discuss issues affecting both their firms and their clients as new regulations, laws and technologies come into effect.

Attendees also witnessed a live demonstration hack carried out by Ethical Hacker Mustafa Al-Bassam.  Mustafa, ex member of the well-known LulzSec hacker group, demonstrated system vulnerabilities in an attempt to help illustrate issues related to cyber security and to de-mystify how hacks are actually carried out – even using a small piece of code to identify a protected mock password in under 2 seconds.

During his speech he highlighted the need to create a cultural shift in people’s behaviour and encourage increased awareness of the capabilities of the digital world, he said:

“Once you understand the risks, you can better protect yourself.  Social engineering is a big risk – while Cybercrime is often seen as a technical issue it is truly a human to human problem”.

Commenting on the day WMA Chief Executive Liz Field said:

“Today has highlighted a vast array of important topics to our industry, from protection against fraud, effective training of staff, to the implementation of the raft of upcoming policy. It also provided an important platform for members to hear from the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the City of London Police on how they are dealing with threats to the UK’s financial services industry. The agencies want even more engagement with the wealth management industry and WMA will continue working closely with them and wealth management firms to tackle financial crime and help protect clients”.

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