Singapore, January 21, 2026 — As Asia’s financial ecosystem becomes increasingly digital, the pace of innovation shows no sign of slowing. Real-time payments, embedded finance, AI-driven fraud detection, and cross-border digital transactions are now part of everyday financial life. Yet beneath this momentum lies a growing tension, one between technological progress and consumer confidence.
For Tina Stewart, Chief Marketing Officer at Utimaco, this tension defines the next chapter of digital finance. Trust, she argues, has become the most valuable and vulnerable asset in the digital economy. While consumers may embrace convenience, their confidence in how institutions protect money, identities, and data remains fragile.
Drawing insights from the 2025 Utimaco Digital Trust Report: Payments Edition, Stewart explains why digital trust is now a board-level concern, how security must evolve alongside innovation, and why CFOs are increasingly pivotal in shaping credible, future-proof trust strategies.
Digital Maturity Brings Digital Exposure
Singapore’s advanced digital infrastructure is often cited as a benchmark for the region. However, Stewart notes that digital maturity also brings heightened awareness of risk. “The 2025 Utimaco Digital Trust Report – Payments Edition highlights that Singapore’s advanced digital ecosystem, while a strength, also brings heightened awareness of cyber threats,” she explains.
As consumers rely more heavily on digital payments and online banking, they become more exposed to sophisticated threats, ranging from fraud and identity theft to supply-chain and third-party vulnerabilities. Visibility of these incidents, amplified by media coverage and regulatory scrutiny, has sharpened public concern.
Despite Singapore recording slightly higher confidence levels than Japan, trust remains limited. Only 7% of consumers fully trust their banks or payment providers to protect their money and data, while 60% do not trust financial institutions to safeguard against online threats.
For CFOs, these figures signal more than reputational risk. Trust directly influences transaction behaviour, customer retention, regulatory relationships, and long-term valuation. Stewart emphasises that digital adoption alone cannot sustain confidence, assurance must be visible, measurable, and ongoing.
When Innovation Outruns Assurance
Across Asia, payment innovation continues to accelerate. Yet Stewart believes trust has lagged because security and risk mitigation have not always evolved at the same pace. “Innovation often outpaces risk mitigation,” she says.
While consumers benefit from speed and convenience, the security foundations supporting these innovations; particularly encryption, key management, and third-party risk controls, are often invisible. This creates unease, especially when high-profile breaches and scams dominate headlines.
Stewart also points to a cultural shift in how risk is perceived. Public discourse increasingly highlights quantum computing and artificial intelligence as imminent threats, often portraying them as tools that could undermine existing security frameworks.
As a result, consumers expect financial institutions to anticipate threats rather than respond after incidents occur. For CFOs, this expectation reshapes how risk investments are evaluated, placing greater emphasis on resilience, foresight, and transparency.
The Overlooked Weak Links in Security Architecture
Despite widespread investment in cybersecurity technologies, Stewart sees recurring gaps across financial institutions. “A recurring gap is visibility and control across complex ecosystems and the supply chain,” she explains.
While internal encryption policies may be robust, exposure often emerges through external vendors, cloud platforms, or poorly governed integrations. Key lifecycle management, ensuring encryption keys are rotated, securely stored, auditable, and recoverable, is another area frequently underestimated.
Yet technology alone is not the issue. Stewart highlights a communication gap that directly affects trust: “The consumer is not aware of the impressive security measures banks take to protect their identities, accounts and wealth.”
This disconnect between protection and perception is where finance leaders can make a tangible difference, by aligning investment decisions with clearer, more accessible communication around security commitments.
Rethinking the Security: Convenience Trade-Off
The belief that security must compromise user experience remains widespread, but Stewart firmly challenges this assumption. “They can coexist, but it requires deliberate design,” she says.
Rather than layering security as an afterthought, Stewart advocates embedding protection directly into system architecture. Hardware-backed key protection, advanced encryption, and behavioural analytics can provide strong security without introducing friction; when implemented intentionally.
She notes that fintech firms often benefit from building secure systems from scratch, whereas traditional institutions face the complexity of modernising legacy environments. However, this does not make transformation unattainable. With long-term planning and executive alignment, security can evolve without disrupting customer experience.
Educating Without Alarming: A Human-Centric Approach to Cybersecurity
Consumer education is essential, but Stewart cautions against fear-driven messaging. Instead, she emphasises empowerment and reassurance. “Education should focus on empowerment,” she explains, highlighting practical guidance such as recognising phishing attempts, enabling two-factor authentication, and understanding vendor safeguards.
Transparency also plays a critical role. Communicating an institution’s commitment to cybersecurity, especially during periods of heightened awareness like Cybersecurity Awareness Month helps reinforce confidence.
Reassurance, Stewart adds, “is always welcome by consumers,” particularly following major industry breaches. For CFOs, this reinforces the importance of integrating cybersecurity narratives into broader stakeholder communication, rather than treating them as isolated technical updates.
AI, Data Security, and the Next Trust Frontier
Artificial intelligence is now embedded across financial services, from fraud detection to customer engagement. Yet its value depends entirely on the security of the data that fuels it. “Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world, driving innovation and creating unprecedented business value,” Stewart notes.
At the same time, AI systems and training data represent high-value targets for attackers. Stewart highlights the dual challenge organisations face: “As organizations race to adopt AI, they must confront a dual challenge: securing their AI investments against today’s threats while preparing for the disruptive force of quantum computing on the horizon.” This demands a lifecycle approach to security, protecting AI models from development through deployment, anchored by trust, governance, and cryptographic resilience.
Preparing Now for the Post-Quantum Era
Quantum computing may not yet be mainstream, but Stewart insists preparation must begin immediately. “Banks and financial institutions should start preparing for the post-quantum era immediately,” she says. With 85% of consumers believing future technologies will weaken today’s security systems, expectations are already shifting.
Readiness involves education, cryptographic audits, adoption of post-quantum algorithms, collaboration with regulators, and phased transition planning. For CFOs, early preparation is not only a defensive move, it is a strategic signal of leadership and long-term responsibility.
Trust as a Financial Strategy, Not a Technical Afterthought
Looking ahead, Stewart underscores that digital trust is no longer confined to IT or security teams. It is a strategic discipline that spans finance, technology, compliance, and communication. For organisations, this means proactive adoption of best practices, future-proofing cryptographic foundations, and transparent engagement with stakeholders.
For consumers, it means choosing institutions that demonstrate credible, verifiable security commitments. In a digital economy where perception and protection are inseparable, CFOs play a defining role, translating complex security strategies into confidence, credibility, and sustainable value.
Stay Connected with Tina
As payments, AI, and quantum technologies continue to reshape financial services, Tina Stewart offers a compelling perspective on how trust can be engineered, not assumed, in the digital age. To continue the conversation on cybersecurity, digital trust, and the future of financial resilience, connect with Tina Stewart on LinkedIn.
