Why Better IT Support for Financial Services is Mission Critical
The financial services field is one of the most scrutinized industries in Canada. It has to be, given that the livelihoods and futures of both businesses and the general pubic are at stake. For this reason reliance on in-house IT support alone is simply not enough. In the same manner that you (a financial services provider) are a necessary intermediary for effective money management, outside tech services are critical to supporting your IT infrastructure. Here’s an accounting of why you need better tech support starting today.
4 Reasons Why Financial Services Providers Need to Secure Outside IT Support Right Away
You’re a Top Target for Cyber Criminals
For obvious reasons, financial services is the most targeted industry by cybercriminals. They go where the money goes. Phishing schemes (and variants using SMS) are the most common forms attack. These campaigns are focused on internal staff in addition to customers/clients, exploiting vulnerabilities that your own company may have allowed, be it directly or indirectly. The most recently cited attack on Canadian soil occurred over a year ago when member accounts of Coast Capital Savings were compromised. Hackers made away with hundreds of thousands of dollars. In this attack, account holders were tricked into giving up sensitive information including usernames, passwords, PINS, and financial details over email and SMS text.
Your industry is and will always be the top target for cybercrime. You require a comprehensive and unbiased audit of your entire IT infrastructure to check for all vulnerabilities.
You’re Held to a Much Higher Standard by Compliance Officers
As a financial services provider operating in Canada you fall under compliance law of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). In addition, if you serve or host data for customers,clients, or vendors in the EU and/or the USA you must also abide by compliance law set forth by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and state by state legislation, respectively. This may be true of nearly all SMEs in Canada but your industry is held to the highest standard in this regard. Your industry is audited by compliance governing bodies more frequently, and should there be any violation your industry will most likely face ramifications in the form of hefty fines and other punitive actions that can suspend operations. Have an IT services firm audit your company for compliance based vulnerabilities in the IT environment.
You Require Better IT Disaster Preparedness That Any Other Industry
Next to the health and medical services, no other industry can afford to go “offline” or lose access to data and operations for more than a few minutes quite like yours. Whether a disaster has occurred because of a cyberattack, extreme weather event, power grid outage, or internal sabotage, you need to be able to recover immediately to achieve business continuity. We have already provided a 5-step guide to IT disaster recovery preparedness but here’s the spoiler – step 5 recommends seeking assistance from an IT firm that offers data backup and disaster recovery services. Here’s our emergency support number.
Your Competition is Digitally Transforming at a Record Pace
To secure operations (everything addressed above), improve staff and executive productivity, and to better service customers/clients, your competitors have adopted digital transformation (DT) in record setting form. Last year, Gartner reported that one-third of financial services CIOs identified DT as their top business priority. In 2020, that number is increasing exponentially as remaining financial services companies have been forced into digital transformation in response to COVID 19.
Full DT is also required to respond to changes in the marketplace. Take currency for example. Financial service providers must now be able to adapt to the growth of cryptocurrency, providing customers/clients with money management for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other top cryptocurrencies of today and tomorrow:
Source: Deloitte’s 8 Predictions for Finance in 2025
Below are some examples of how your company must catch up to the competition and adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace:
- Provide “real time” reporting of financials to customers/clients
- Provide “self service” options for customers / clients
- Provide cryptocurrency money management solutions
- Provide better workforce solutions to account for on-premesis and remote staff and contractors
In order to automate operations for increased efficiencies and deliver on the items above (as your competition is doing) you need to move towards sweeping digital transformation today. Only an IT firm with dedicated expertise in DT can move your company into the current and next era of financial services.
Contact SAV Technology today to discuss what we can do for you.