Fraud Fighter – Libertex Group and the Importance of Communication

This week we sat down with Sergey Artyukhin, Risk and Payment Product Team Leader at the Libertex Group which runs the consumer brand (FX) Forex Club.

A graduate of the highly respected Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) (MIPT), Sergey offers his opinion on how to unlock the best synergy between risk and revenue as well as other insights from his cybersecurity career so far.

Starting in the Banking Industry

Throughout his career, Sergey has developed his knowledge of risk through a mix of academics, possessing a master’s in Radio Engineering and Cybernetics, as well as a variety of roles from information security to project manager in previous roles.

“I was always interested in cybersecurity as well as just everything digital, so being young I just got right into it. My first role was around IT security so many things I learned at university were applicable. Also, I had to learn more hardware skills because with banks it’s not enough to just have software skills as we had physical access to the servers, additional locks etc.”

Understanding the Business Element

Sergey wanted to develop his understanding to be more holistic, focusing on how his work actually makes an impact from a product perspective as he explains “one cannot live without the other.”

“What I understood after several years of working within IT is that it’s super important to understand how both sides of the business works. I wanted to understand how the business could change or grow, and the most important part was understanding how it navigates all the risk regulations so it can continue growth whilst providing a good user experience.”

A move to Alfa-Bank gave Sergey the opportunity to expand his skillset…

“Since I was part of the other side of the product, I knew how difficult it was so it was important to learn how this is done – I mean we all know the best way to stop fraud is to not do anything!”

Balancing Revenue and Fraud

Jimmy highlighted Sergey’s understanding of the risk and payment ecosystem and he asked Sergey his top piece of advice which was given to him by a previous manager.

“When I was working in product, we had completely opposite KPIs to our risk team so when I asked my manager ‘how do we work with this?’ he gave me a brilliant answer in that you need to communicate with each other otherwise you will not achieve any of your goals.”

Working with opinions from both the product and risk team members helps minimize any clashes of interests and keeps you working towards the same goals.

“It became clear that the business can think of risk when creating a product and risk can think of the business when creating rules. If you have to agree on a project with another person within your company that works in a different area, you will miss out on anything crazy and not suffer from it!”
“This balance is important, we had lots of communication between risk, payments, and our credit sales team. Good solutions appear after long conversations with all departments. For me, it was easier thanks to my experience as I knew how it should be and how it should work so I was able to communicate with both sides with confidence.”

From FS to FX

With knowledge from both the client and bank’s perspective, Sergey jumped at the opportunity to learn things from the merchant’s side of things, ultimately bringing together his experience to his current team leader role.

“Initially I was focused on payments before then moving across to more risk-based activities. I have looked to create a balance between our KPIs in that whilst you might not have completely opposite targets, you should have something specific for another aspect of the business.”
“For example, if you are working in risk you should have one KPI to reduce risk input from the clients or if you’re responsible for payments, one of your targets should be to reduce risk level or chargebacks.”

Find more information about the Libertex Group.

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