As customers adopt a digital lifestyle, the financial services required to support their online purchases are growing at an unprecedented pace. To match these challenges IT organizations are frequently turning to the cloud and replacing traditional services. Cloud services are already well-rooted in virtually every aspect of the financial services industry and all signs point to this continuing into the future. As Forbes points out, 78% of adults in the U.S are banking digitally, with 57% using a debit card as their main payment method.
Investments in technology to support customer growth continue to drive IT decisions, as of 2022 enterprise cloud spending across financial services reached $25 million according to Forrester. Is it any surprise coming from an industry that practically invented the idea of the branch office? Coupling the expanding needs of digital customers with a distributed workforce, these investments go beyond lowering costs or streamlining transactions. Which means that financial services organizations need to address this question: Do you have the right, security, compliance, and protection in place for all of the data growth in your organization?
Cybersecurity Awareness Month takes place each October, and this year recent headlines made organizations even more aware of the potential for negative outcomes. While strong security practices should be at the core of every organization, it also has the ability to enable transformation and innovation in today’s digital environment. Supporting users who can connect from anywhere is the reality whether it is employees, or customers. Making certain they have secure access to data, systems, and applications across multiple touch points is a key concern for IT organizations. Cloud security itself can be a very broad term and is constantly evolving to match the variety of attacks being deployed. A cloud security strategy designed by experts is a crucial defense in mitigating an attack. Cloud computing is often more secure than on-premises systems as providers have more resources for keeping data secure than individual organizations have access to.
In today’s environment the need for security often goes hand in hand with the need to meet compliance requirements. Financial services organizations are tasked with protecting extremely sensitive data including customer payment data. Adherence to best practices and compliance regulations can involve internal auditors and external third-party audits all in a normal business day. We know there are multiple benefits for an organization in a cloud environment but what are some of the key benefits from a compliance standpoint? One of the most important differences is the cloud provider itself. Your cloud environment should be managed by highly trained security professionals and provide a more advanced level of protection than traditional IT environments. Data privacy is a huge concern for organizations and their customers, compliance is the due diligence to make sure those needs are being met from a regulatory standpoint. A key component are the tools that provide your organization with the visibility and control it needs to monitor your cloud-based environment. Providers can deliver critical services such as on-demand security and compliance reporting, as well as continuous logging and monitoring of data. A cloud provider should also deliver an IT environment that conforms to the appropriate compliance frameworks, marking sure it provides the levels of data encryption your organization requires. Digital transformation can tackle the challenges of meeting compliance requirements and adherence but is also an opportunity for innovation against competitors.
At the end of the day, the main goal of an organization is to have their data in a secure environment with the best available practices in place to protect it. Being secure means more to customers than due diligence and best practices. Damages to an organization’s reputation from an incident go far beyond breaches and compromised data. Privacy and compliance laws will continue to evolve and change around the world, as will the technology supporting them. Working with a valued cloud partner who is committed to providing the tools you need today with an eye to the future is always a good investment.
