Press Release: Demand for PaymentWorks Unique Business Identity Platform Grows

by Angela Sarno

VP Marketing

Company expands customer roster and bolsters leadership team to address mounting risk

Waltham, MA – September 8, 2021 – According to the FBI, cybercriminals stole more than $28 billion through email fraud from 2016-2020, making business payments fraud a significant threat to organizations of all sizes. 74% of companies reported they were a target of an attempted or successful payments fraud last year, according to the Association for Financial Professionals Annual Payments Fraud and Control Survey. PaymentWorks unique business identity platform was purpose-built to automate the complex payee management process and eliminate the risk of business payments fraud. On the heels of a successful 2020, PaymentWorks continues to experience significant momentum and growth in the first half of 2021, helping organizations across industries swiftly address mounting risks from savvy fraudsters. To learn more about our unique business identity platform, visit HERE.

Year-to-date highlights include:

Rapid Customer Adoption
- Higher Education – Continued strong foothold in higher education, bolstered by the addition of North Carolina State University, Idaho State University, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Idaho, among others.
- K-12 – Increased adoption among K-12 schools, including Toledo Public Schools and Spring Branch ISD.
- Construction – Increase in customer implementations across new vertical markets, including Performance Contracting Group.
Strategic Industry Partnerships – Secured agreement with E&I Cooperative Services to help higher education and K-12 schools implement secure, repeatable, transparent vendor onboarding and relationship management; extended Nacha Secured Preferred Partner status.
Personnel Momentum – Notable appointments include Taylor Nemeth as Head of Payments, responsible for the company’s payment security and product; Ashley Watson as Vice President, Customer Experience, responsible for the enablement, technical operations, customer success, and support teams; Rick Auletta as Senior Vice President, Sales, and Hayley Bakst Hynes as Vice President, Strategic Partnerships.
Advisory Board – An expanded roster of industry experts to include Yakut Akman, former 3rd party risk officer at Citibank and subject matter expert at Reference Point, and Elena Gaudette, Chief of Staff and Head of Business Operations for Cloud Security Product at Cisco. These accomplished professionals join existing members Clay Deutsch, former CEO, Boston Private Financial Holdings, David G.W Birch, author, advisor, and commentator on digital financial services, and John Amaral, former head of product for Cisco cloud security and founder of Slim.Ai.
Industry Research – Featured in Spend Matters Vendor Analysis as well as a Kearney report, “The future of procurement: moving beyond mediocre technology,” noted as being critical to the digital future of procurement.
Whitepaper – Co-authored with Chubb and Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP, the new paper, “Guarding Against Email Social Engineering Fraud: Re-examining a Global Problem” explores the common types of email social engineering schemes, particularly involving payments and suppliers, and how today’s cybercriminals are employing more sophisticated social engineering attacks than in the past.

“Business payments fraud is the largest source of cybercrime in the US and at the forefront of all AP professionals – those responsible for authenticating and authorizing those critical payments are going to the right vendor, day in and day out,” said Thayer Stewart, CEO, PaymentWorks. “We remain steadfast in our mission to eliminate the risk of business payments fraud and offer peace of mind to those on the front lines. We are grateful for continued company growth and will continue to invest in our platform and expand our offerings to stay one step ahead of savvy fraudsters.”

About PaymentWorks

PaymentWorks and our company’s Business Identity Platform eliminates the risk of business payments fraud, costing US businesses more than $20 billion annually. By automating a complex, manual, people-intensive, and error-prone payment process, PaymentWorks protects organizations such as Hackensack Meridian Health, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Kentucky from business payments fraud and ensures regulatory compliance. To learn more about how we do it and the partners we work with, visit our website, check out our blog, or listen to our podcast series, “PaymentWorks Presents Risky Business.”