Financial companies want to stay ahead, but security and compliance are prime concerns
Financial companies are heavily regulated and frequently scrutinized. While these companies increasingly are moving to Banking on the Cloud, 81% of banking CEOs are concerned about the speed of technological change.
In addition, personal financial information is in high demand by hackers. Balancing compliance and security mandates, providing customers with
a modern user experience, and ensuring overall profitability is an ongoing challenge.
There is tremendous opportunity for VARs and MSPs to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of finance firms and help them in their digital transition to Banking on the Cloud.
TOP SEVEN CHALLENGES FACING FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANIES
1. Manage risk
Without real-time compliance data, organizations are at risk for noncompliance and have an increased risk of fraud.
2. Thwart cyber-security threats
The threat and impact of cyberattacks on the financial sector is increasing.
3. Overcome the legacy IT factor
Many financial services companies are relying on decades-old software to power their day-to-day business.
4. Optimize the customer experience
Financial services firms must meet changing customer expectations and competitive pressures.
5. Utilize high-performance computing
Financial services firms require high-performance computing (HPC) solutions and an enterprise-grade platform to perform computationally intensive tasks.
6. Leverage analytics and reporting
Financial institutions need a way to access, consolidate, and manipulate data in a meaningful way.
7. Improving communication
Firms require secure and often encrypted communication options for internal and customer-facing communications and must balance cost, regulations, and confidentiality.
BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS FOR FINANCIAL COMPANIES
• Leverage big data for real-time insights and guidance
Big data helps financial companies manage governance, risk, and compliance; provide better customer insight and service; optimize pricing and lending strategies; and promote better operational efficiencies.
• Communication and collaboration
Financial services companies must have productive communication internally and with customers.
• Compliance
Financial firms’ software systems must support and enforce compliance mandates.
• Encrypted messaging
FSI firms must ensure compliance with jurisdiction-specific data privacy and protection rules while securing sensitive company and customer data.
• Security
Big data makes it possible to capture real-time activity and immediately detect anomalies, detecting fraudulent behaviour before any harm can be done.
• Connectivity and reliability to ensure continuity
Firms must be able to continuously monitor their infrastructure to prevent any potential downtime and minimize its impact on business if it does occur.
WHY CLOUD?
Agility
Many financial services companies are big bulky. Cloud-based platforms are scalable on demand, nimble and adaptable enabling FSI companies to react and respond more quickly.
Safer data handling
Cloud provides an additional layer of protection above data stored on employee laptops or USB drives, which can easily be stolen or lost.
Cost and time savings
Businesses can expand their use of cloud services without extra hardware purchases and with little or no software costs or maintenance fees. Cloud services are typically subscription-based, and FSI companies can scale requirements up or down according to needs.
Scalability
The cloud gives financial institutions the ability to rapidly scale processing capability up and down, according to ever-changing market developments and customer demands on a global scale.
Low-cost storage
The cloud provides easily scalable storage that can be increased or decreased almost instantaneously. Many cloud providers offer storage solutions for a fraction of the cost of purchasing, operating and maintaining internal storage servers.
Compliance efficiencies and big-data insights
Cloud-based tools can help organisations stay on top of regulatory compliance demands and enable then to perform data-analysis projects.
leading-edge security
Cloud service providers (CSPs) have invested in leading-edge security and implemented date privacy best practices. CSPs are typically able to offer levels of security when Banking on the Cloud, most companies lack the expertise or resources to implement and manage on their own.
