One plus one is more than two – reflections from our member conference
A word from our General Manager
In his closing address, our General Manager had a direct message for members: the storm has not passed, but our community is exactly why that matters less than it might.
General Manager, NFCERT · Helsinki 02-06-2026
A year ago, I described the financial sector as standing in the middle of a perfect storm – geopolitical turbulence on one side, rising crime on another, and a growing weight of regulation pressing down from above. If anyone expected calmer weather twelve months later, the honest answer is: not yet.
There is still war in Europe. The world has become more uncertain, more transactional, and less predictable. The rules-based order we used to take for granted is being tested in ways we have not seen since the cold war.
“The Nordics remain something close to a safe zone — stable, trusted, and built on a foundation of cooperation that few other regions can match.”
AI is reshaping our sector from two directions at once. Internally, it puts real pressure on how we govern risk, manage models, protect data, and explain ourselves to regulators and customers. Externally, our adversaries are using the same technology to discover vulnerabilities faster, to scale social engineering, and to accelerate attacks in ways that simply were not possible even a year ago.
Nothing in the past year suggests any of this is about to slow down. Which is exactly why communities like Nordic Financial CERT matter more than ever.
Twelve people. Twice the impact.
This conference also marks my first year as General Manager. One thing I keep hearing when I tell people we are a team of twelve is that they almost always assume we must be at least double that.
That says something about the extraordinary team I have the privilege of leading. But it says something even more important about what NFCERT really is, and about the power of the model we have built together. One plus one does not always equal two. Sometimes the sum is far greater than what each of us puts in on our own. And that is thanks to the community. To you.
Three priorities for the year ahead
Deepening our view of the Nordic threat landscape — refined, combined, and returned to members as something more valuable than what came in.
A new member portal and modernised interfaces — making it clearer what we offer and easier to extract real value from our services.
A Nordic data-sharing platform for financial crime prevention — reducing losses, taking money from criminal networks, and building a safer Nordic society.
Pioneering work, Nordic-led
On the Nordic data-sharing platform: we are well on our way. Our mule sharing platform is already one of only seven data-sharing platforms globally that makes cross-border fraud data sharing possible. That is something to be genuinely proud of – and we are not content to stop there.
In Norway, a pilot is underway that expands sharing beyond IBANs to include names and national identification numbers. This has been made possible by the forward-leaning approach of members including DNB, Nordea, Eika, SpareBank 1, and Sparebanken Norge. At the Nordic level, we are positioning ourselves as the region’s leading data-sharing platform, aligned with the new Payment Services Regulation and broader European initiatives.
We already have commitment from several members to kick of NFCERT’s largest project to date this autumn – and there is still room for more to join the pilot phase.
The conversations on stage were sharp. The conversations in the hallways were sharper still. That is what this community does — and it is exactly what the coming year calls for. Thank you for being part of it.
