Counterparty risk is the exposure you take on from the people you transact with — their solvency, their conduct, and their own counterparties. It rarely announces itself, and it is usually priced at zero until it is not. This guide sets out what counterparty risk actually covers, where it hides in ordinary commercial relationships, and how to assess it without stalling the deal.
FIRAv2 is Falcone International’s online risk assessment for business leaders who want to identify and measure their own exposure before someone else does. This guide covers how to work through it, how to read the score that comes back, and how to turn the result into something your team can act on rather than a document that gets filed.
Falcone International has launched FIRA v2, a free online risk assessment for leaders who want a structured read on their own exposure. Twenty-five questions produce a scored report that names and ranks the weak points rather than describing them in general terms, so the result is something you can act on rather than file.
A vendor of many years began paying more than it owed, then asked for the surplus to be forwarded to accounts named nowhere in the contract. The CFO who queried it was one authorized payment away from being the person who moved the money. What we established, why sending the money back would have been the wrong move, and the warning signs any finance team can check unaided.
Most business planning treats politics as background noise until a border closes, a currency is restricted, a sanctions list expands, or a local partner turns out to be politically exposed. Geopolitics rarely appears on a risk register, and it is one of the few risks that can invalidate an entire market entry at once. This piece covers how political change reaches the balance sheet, and what to watch for.
Background checks protect against legal and financial liability, confirm that qualifications are real, and keep the workplace safe — but only if they are run before the offer rather than after it. Criminal and employment history checks establish whether the record matches the résumé, and whether the person you are about to give access to has a history that would change your mind. Most of the cost of skipping one arrives months later.
Phishing and pretexting work because they target people rather than systems — and the people they target most successfully are the ones with authority to move money or grant access. No amount of security spending closes a gap that opens when someone helpful is asked a plausible question. This piece covers the main forms these attacks take, what they cost, and the defenses that hold up in practice.
As the world becomes increasingly connected, midsize businesses face new and complex security threats. Cybercriminals are always looking for new targets. Companies that aren’t prepared for these threats are at a high risk of losing sensitive data, suffering financial losses, and damaging their reputation. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most significant threats midsize businesses face and what they can do to protect themselves.