Future of Third-Party Risk Conference 2026
September 22 @ 8:00 am - September 23 @ 5:00 pm
The ripple effect of unmanaged third-party risk – South Africa’s growing compliance challenge
In 2026, third-party risk has become a major source of disruption as modern operating models depend on closely interconnected external providers. Over time, it has evolved from a procurement concern into a business-wide issue that affects every department across financial institutions.
These dependencies are central to critical operations:
- Cloud providers enable core banking platforms, payment systems, and customer-facing applications.
- Fintech partners are integrated directly into product and service delivery.
- Software vendors support identity management, fraud detection, and transaction monitoring.
- When one provider fails, the effects can quickly spread across multiple institutions
- COFI is shifting accountability upward
Regulators are responding to this rising systemic risk. Because in the eyes of the Regulator, outsourcing is not delegation, it is shared responsibility.
Supervisory guidance now treats third-party risk as a matter of operational resilience. Too often, technology suppliers (ironically the highest-risk category) are accepted at face value simply because everyone uses them.
This is where the compliance failures of tomorrow are incubating today.
