Bringing leaders together to establish trust, control, and confidence in every payment
Payments are moving faster, AI is reshaping how finance decisions get made, and supply chains are knitting tighter. The responsibility for trust and control across all of it is moving firmly into the finance function.
On 19 November in Sydney, Eftsure brings together Australia’s finance leaders, security experts, and futurists for On the Defense, Eftsure's annual summit. It's a working network for the finance leaders rewriting what trust and control look like inside the modern function.
The new guardians of trust
For most of the last decade, cybercrime strategy lived in the IT department. That's where the technology sat, so that's where the playbook sat with it. The cybercriminals didn't get the memo. They've been targeting the money, not the network, for years.
The people best placed to lead the response are already accountable for the money, the controls, and the forecast. The CFO sits between the systems that approve payments, the controls that govern them, and the board that wants assurance both work. Trust and control aren't side projects.
They're the centre of the brief.
What's on the agenda
On the Defense is built around the disciplines that now sit with finance: resilient payment systems, strengthened financial controls, and the leadership response to emerging risk across people, processes, technology, and trading networks. The agenda spans payment assurance, finance efficiency, AI accountability inside the function, and the broader trust posture that connects them.
It's not a cybersecurity conference. It's a finance summit at the intersection of operational control, strategic governance, and the brand-level trust an organisation puts on the line every time money leaves it.
Security without slowing down growth
Finance teams are under pressure to move faster, with some organisations even piloting agent-to-agent payment flows. Every one of those changes makes finance more efficient, but they also raise the cost of a mistake.
Our agenda treats that tension as a central question, not a footnote. Sessions will explore how to:
- Use AI inside finance without leaking company data to third parties
- Keep central visibility over who you're paying, what you're paying, and when, as volume and speed both rise
- Tighten controls while building scale, not friction
- Scope the business case for prevention against the full cost of fraud, often around five times the money lost once forensics, recovery, and distraction are counted
That's the brief most finance functions are still figuring out in private, but the summit will bring the conversation into the open.
Who's in the room
The line-up is built from the brands and institutions closest to the issue. Senior finance representatives will sit alongside Australia's cyber industry leaders, including CyberCX and Huntress. Mastercard brings the macro view on the economic conditions reshaping business exposure, and the NSW Police Cybercrime Squad represents the law enforcement frontline.
Between them, the line-up brings the threat surface, the policy environment, and the practical response into one event, with more speakers yet to be announced.
Where finance takes the lead
Across the day, a quiet through-line emerges. Finance leaders aren't here to be defended, they're here to take command. AI is reshaping the function, the economic environment is widening business exposure, and boards are asking sharper questions about the controls that now sit squarely with the CFO. The leaders in this room are the ones building what comes next.
One day. One community. One mission: confidence in every payment.
Register for On the Defense
