The reason third-party risk is expected to become one of the defining risk challenges of 2026 is clear: it sits at the intersection of cybersecurity, operational resilience, regulatory accountability, financial crime, and systemic stability.

Today’s organisations are more interconnected than ever before. A single third-party failure can rapidly trigger a chain reaction across multiple areas of the business. Cyber incidents can result in data breaches and mandatory regulatory disclosures. Critical service providers can experience outages that disrupt customer operations. Compliance failures attract heightened regulatory scrutiny, while contractual disputes and legal liabilities often follow. What begins as a vendor issue can quickly become an enterprise-wide crisis.

In this environment, organisations that continue to manage third-party risk as a periodic compliance exercise will struggle to respond with the speed and agility required. By contrast, those that embed third-party risk management into governance, procurement, operational resilience, business continuity, and strategic decision-making will be far better equipped to anticipate, withstand and recover from disruption.

The first major incidents of the coming year are unlikely to originate within your own organisation. They are far more likely to begin somewhere within your extended third-party ecosystem—revealing which organisations have genuine visibility, resilience and control over their operating models.

Because in today’s interconnected risk landscape, the first domino rarely falls inside your own walls.

Fragmented and siloed approaches to third-party risk management create blind spots that expose organisations to operational disruption, regulatory breaches, financial loss and reputational damage. As regulatory expectations continue to evolve and organisations become increasingly dependent on external partners, adopting a proactive, integrated and enterprise-wide approach to third-party risk has become a business imperative.

Against this backdrop, the Future of Third-Party Risk Conference, taking place on 22–23 September 2026 at the Indaba Hotel, Fourways, will bring together senior decision-makers and risk professionals from banking, financial services, insurance, retail, payment service providers, fintechs, regulators and government to explore the latest challenges, regulatory developments, emerging threats and practical strategies for strengthening third-party risk management.

With close to 25 leading industry experts sharing their knowledge and real-world experience, the conference will cover a comprehensive range of critical topics, including:

• The evolving third-party risk landscape
• Building resilient third-party risk strategies
• Mitigating operational, cyber and concentration risk
• Digital banking, fintechs and digital assets within the third-party ecosystem
• Decoding COFI requirements and procurement governance
• Contract remediation and vendor oversight
• AML, fraud and financial crime risks across third-party relationships
• Technology, automation and continuous monitoring
• Regulatory expectations and best practices for operational resilience

Whether your organisation is strengthening its third-party risk framework, preparing for new regulatory requirements, or seeking practical solutions to improve supplier governance and resilience, this conference offers a unique opportunity to gain actionable insights, benchmark against industry peers and engage directly with experts shaping the future of third-party risk.

Trade Conferences International (TCI) is proud to present another premier conference dedicated to helping organisations navigate today’s increasingly complex third-party risk landscape.

We look forward to welcoming you to the not- to- missed event September.