The four-eyes principle is one of the oldest controls of all, and one of the most frequently hollowed out. The idea is simple: what can cause significant damage should not be decided by one person alone. In practice it often becomes a click without a look.
Which operations need two people
Payments above a defined size and payments to new recipients. Changes to bank details and master data, a classic route for fraud. Accepting and continuing higher-risk relationships, where enhanced due diligence applies anyway. Sending reports to families when they form the basis for decisions. And invoices calculated on the basis of assets.
Segregation of duties
Closely related is segregation of duties: whoever enters a payment does not approve it; whoever maintains master data does not create payments; whoever manages a client relationship does not alone decide its risk classification. Segregation prevents one person from controlling an operation from start to finish.
Small teams
In a family office of three, strict segregation is not always possible. Compensating controls help: an external person, for example from fiduciary or compliance, who takes over certain approvals; a subsequent review of all operations in a period; or a system that flags exceptions. What matters is that the solution is chosen deliberately and recorded, rather than quietly dropped.
System rather than discipline
A four-eyes principle that relies on discipline lasts until the first hectic day. Systems can enforce it: an operation only takes effect once a second authorised person approves it, and the approval is recorded with person and time in the audit trail. That also shows whether the second person actually checked or clears approvals in seconds.
Tied to the mandate
Approvals belong to the mandate, not a separate inbox. Anyone wanting to see which payments for a family were approved in a quarter needs the answer on the mandate. The same applies to QR-bills to clients whose amounts are calculated from asset data.