| Course | FI310 FinTech Principles and Concepts |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Risk assessment memo |
| Length | About 810 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Finance |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for FI310 Unit 7
Faster Payments Moved the Fraud Window, Not the Fraud: A Unit 7 Risk Assessment Memo on Instant Supplier Payments
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
FI310: FinTech Principles and Concepts
Unit 7 Risk Assessment Memo
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The distributor, its suppliers and every figure are composite; the survey and books cited are real.
Memorandum
To: Chief Financial Officer From: Treasury Analyst Date: April 14, 2026 Re: Fraud risk after the move to instant supplier payments
Conclusion First
The move to instant payments saved about $61,000 a year in check printing, postage and bank fees and let us capture $140,000 of early-payment discounts. It also removed the one or two days in which a fraudulent payment could be stopped. Payments are now final within seconds and cannot be recalled. Our controls were designed for checks and have not caught up. I recommend three changes before the next quarter.
The Old Timeline
Under checks, a payment took four to six days from approval to clearing. If a fraudster changed a supplier's bank details and we mailed a check, the check went to the supplier's real address. When we began paying some suppliers by standard bank transfer two years ago, a fraudulent change could redirect funds, but the transfer settled the next day and our bank could sometimes recall it if we called within hours. Twice last year, a supplier called to ask where its payment was before the money had left the receiving bank, and we recovered it.
The New Timeline
Instant payments settle in seconds, around the clock, and are final. There is no next-day settlement in which to notice a problem and no recall. A payment to the wrong account is gone unless the receiving bank freezes it voluntarily, which is rare and slow.
Where the Risk Went
The most common attack on business payments is a fraudster impersonating a supplier and asking us to update its bank details, often by email from a lookalike address. Industry surveys report that a large majority of organizations face attempted or actual payments fraud each year, and that business email compromise is among the most frequent methods (Association for Financial Professionals, 2024). Our vendor master file allows accounts payable staff to change bank details after an email request and a callback to the phone number in the email, which a fraudster controls.
Instant payments did not create the bank-detail fraud we face; they removed the delay that used to give us a chance to catch it, so the controls that matter now are the ones that act before a change is made, not after a payment is sent.
Recommendations
1. Verify bank changes independently. Any change to a supplier's bank details must be confirmed through a phone number we held before the request arrived, never one the request itself supplies, and approved by a second person outside accounts payable.
2. Hold new or changed accounts. For thirty days after any bank detail change, pay that supplier by standard transfer, not instant, so that a recall window exists while the change is still new.
3. Watch for patterns. Flag any change made within ten days of a large scheduled payment, and any change requested by email rather than through our supplier portal.
Cost of the Controls
The callback and second approval add about ten minutes per change; we process about forty changes a month. The thirty-day hold delays early-payment discounts on a handful of suppliers. Against a single redirected payment, our largest suppliers receive up to $380,000 at a time, the cost is small.
Who Owns Each Control
Accounts payable would own the callback and the thirty-day hold, since it already maintains the vendor master file. The second approval should sit with the treasury team, so that no single department can both change a supplier's bank details and release a payment to them. Internal audit would test a sample of bank changes each quarter, checking that every one has a logged callback to a number on file before the request and a second approver's name. The supplier portal team would add a field showing the date of the last bank change, so the payment screen warns staff when an account is still inside the hold period.
Training
Accounts payable staff should receive a short annual session on bank-change fraud, including examples of lookalike email addresses and urgent requests timed before large payments. The suppliers most often impersonated are those with large, regular payments, so staff should treat any change request from those suppliers with extra care.
Residual Risk
No control removes the risk entirely. Insiders could still collude, and a fraudster who compromises a supplier's own systems could pass a callback. Insurance for funds transfer fraud should be reviewed, since many policies exclude social engineering losses unless a specific endorsement is added (Chishti & Barberis, 2016; Philippon, 2016).
References
Association for Financial Professionals. (2024). 2024 AFP payments fraud and control survey report. Association for Financial Professionals.
Chishti, S., & Barberis, J. (2016). The FinTech book: The financial technology handbook for investors, entrepreneurs and visionaries. Wiley.
Philippon, T. (2016). The FinTech opportunity (NBER Working Paper No. 22476). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w22476
Reading the FI 310 Unit 7 instructions
Unit 7 of FI310 asks for a memo assessing a risk tied to a financial technology. Use memo headings and put your conclusion first, with the benefit of the technology stated in figures. Describe the old timeline and the new one, showing what the old process allowed you to catch. Identify the specific threat, how it works and how often industry data says it happens. Examine whether current controls were designed for the old process. Recommend a small number of concrete controls, assign owners and estimate their cost against the possible loss. Address training where people are part of the risk. Close with the risk that remains after the controls and any insurance question it raises. Cite industry fraud data and a course text in APA 7.
How this FI310 Unit 7 example is built
The sample's conclusion leads with the savings and the lost window: payments now settle in seconds and cannot be recalled. The old timeline shows checks taking four to six days and next-day transfers sometimes recalled within hours, which saved two payments last year. The highlighted sentence explains that speed removed the delay rather than creating the fraud. Recommendations require a callback to a number on file before the request plus approval from outside accounts payable, standard transfers for thirty days after any change, and flags on changes within ten days of a large payment. About forty changes a month at ten minutes each are weighed against payments of up to $380,000. Residual risk covers collusion and social engineering exclusions.
FI310 Unit 7 rubric: what earns full points
Risk memos in FI310 earn points for tracing how a technology changed the timing or nature of a loss and for controls matched to that change. Graders check that the conclusion comes first, that benefits and threats are both quantified, that the threat is described in enough detail to design against and that existing controls are tested rather than assumed. The rubric rewards controls with owners and costs, attention to people as well as systems, and a candid statement of residual risk. Memos that list generic cybersecurity advice, ignore the benefit side or promise to eliminate risk receive fewer points. Industry survey data used accurately gives the threat its weight.
Common FI310 Unit 7 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Weak Unit 7 memos describe instant payments in glowing terms and then add a paragraph of general fraud warnings. Others recommend dozens of controls with no owner or cost. Many miss the core point, that the technology removed a recall window the old controls quietly depended on. The threat is often named without explaining how the fraudster operates, so the controls do not fit it. Residual risk and insurance are left out. If your prompt involves robotic reconciliation, automated claims or real-time trading, a writer can locate the risk that technology moved and design controls for that point.
Get an FI310 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Describe the efficiency your Unit 7 prompt examines, or the payment change your employer made, and include the FI310 memo instructions with the rubric. The memo arrives conclusion first, with a register rated against that firm's figures and controls costed one by one. Turnaround runs 24-48h, and the first custom sample is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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FI310 Unit 7 questions, answered
Why are instant payments harder to reverse than checks?
A check can be stopped until it is paid, and an ordinary bank transfer can sometimes be returned under network rules within a short window. Instant payment rails are generally built so that a completed payment is final, which is what makes them useful to the recipient. Recovery then depends on the receiving bank's cooperation, and the funds have often moved on by the time anyone asks.
Can my memo focus on a different efficiency?
Yes. Automated claims payment, robotic reconciliation, straight-through trade processing and self-service account changes all relocate risk in comparable ways. The question to carry over is what the slow version quietly protected against. In the sample it was time to notice a fraud; elsewhere it might be a human reviewer who caught duplicates, or a delay that let a customer change their mind.
Where can I find a free FI310 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page holds a full FI310 Unit 7 risk assessment memo on instant supplier payments at a composite distributor, with old and new timelines, three controls, residual risk and APA 7 references.
Why can't the callback use the number in the request?
Because a fraudster who sends a fake bank-change email controls the phone number in it too. Only a number held before the request arrived reaches the real supplier, which is why the sample requires it.
Does the thirty-day hold give up the benefits of instant payment?
Only briefly and only for suppliers who just changed their bank details. Paying them by standard transfer during that period recreates a recall window when the risk is highest, while the other suppliers keep instant payment.