Data access management is the cornerstone of any effective payment security strategy. Keeping sensitive payment data on a need-to-know – or need-to-access – basis is what enables you to efficiently use this data in your business while still protecting against payment fraud.
The truth is, payment fraud prevention is only as effective as the weakest link, and it may be that data access is that weak link.
And this is only becoming a bigger issue as corporate payment ecosystems become more complex: With ERP platforms, banks, fintech tools, and global teams intersecting more than ever, traditional approaches to data access management are no longer sufficient.
What was once an IT concern has quietly become a strategic risk multiplier that directly impacts financial control, operational speed, and your organization’s ability to scale payments safely.
That’s why it’s important for finance leaders to rethink data access management through a payment-specific lens.
Compared to other types of data, payment data is uniquely sensitive, highly regulated, and offers incredible value. These attributes mean that this data is particularly susceptible to fraud and requires increased oversight.
Let’s break it down:
Data associated with payments can reveal a lot. Especially with richer level 3 data, you can learn everything from merchant names and transaction amounts to unit prices, duty and tax breakdowns, and other insightful data.
While valuable in the right hands, such transaction data may be sensitive: From flight tickets that indicate a person’s whereabouts and movement patterns, to information about venues they frequent, from which lifestyle choices and political sympathies may be inferred. Even seemingly harmless transaction data may end up aggregating into full profiles of an individual, especially with the help of AI.
Add to that the importance of trust in the payment industry, and it’s clear that payment data needs to be handled with particular care.
Corporate payment workflows are complex, spanning multiple systems and platforms. That means data is spread between your ERP, travel management system, account payables tools, and beyond. It’s also shared between different internal teams – think finance, treasury, and account payables. And that’s not to mention external partners.
All this complicates payment data security and necessitates a more granular access management system for each user/role.
The ability to view payment data and act on them are different activities. But when payments jump between platforms, the distinction can begin to break down. Your ERP may allow edit capabilities alongside view permissions while your procurement system may provide download/export rights that can lead to off-system manipulation.
What’s clear is that general access models can fail to meet the needs of modern corporate payment workflows, being either too restrictive or too lax.
Over-permissioning, where users are provided access that exceeds the needs of their role or task, leaves your business at risk.
It can start with small oversights – providing ‘temporary’ access that doesn’t get revoked after the fact or role-based models that lag behind organizational changes. But this ‘access sprawl’ can quickly add up and leave you vulnerable.
What’s worse is that this is an invisible risk: Breaches from an internal malicious actor often don't trigger alarms as most attention and surveillance is focused on external forces. More importantly, it can also be difficult to audit – access risk is something that accumulates over time and remains invisible until it fails.
Failure can lead to financial impacts while slowing down your operations and limiting the scope of your strategy.
And while current regulations reinforce principles like data minimization and purpose limitation within service providers, these same principles must be extended to recipient organizations to complete the protection of data.
Data access management requires constant oversight by the right people.
It’s not something that should live with IT – it’s a shared responsibility to which Finance must contribute, in order to form a cohesive and fit-for-purpose data access model. It also requires regular auditing to ensure permissions stay in line with current needs and evolving team set ups.
However you approach it, managing access to data is something to keep top of mind.
Looking to stay in the loop on topics like this? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest on corporate payments to your inbox.