Now that we are well into the new year, it’s worth looking at what could be some of the top priorities for financial institutions in 2023.
- Expanding bandwidth capacity to support customer expectations
- Reducing complexity while improving business performance
- Ensuring secure application access
1. Expanding Bandwidth Capacity to Support Customer Expectations
Now and into the future, expanding bandwidth will continue to pay off for financial service providers. Brick-and-mortar branches need robust connectivity to support new ways of interacting with customers. Enhanced connectivity can allow financial service providers to stay relevant to customers who no longer visit branches to cash paychecks or deposit checks. For instance, with customers becoming more accustomed to virtual meetings, banks experiencing heavy foot traffic can direct some customers to kiosks where remote employees can assist them with transactions or other services. Those types of solutions drive the need for more robust bandwidth and secure, reliable networks.
In 2020, U.S. banks and thrifts closed 3,324 branches nationwide and opened 1,040, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. This indicates that some banks are failing to adapt to changing customer expectations. In response, some banks are turning their branches into cafés and equipping employees with tablets and other mobile devices, bringing them out from behind the counter so they can interact with customers and answer questions about financial products in a relaxed setting.
For their employees to do that, banks must increase their bandwidth and ensure that it’s both reliable and that they have cyber tools to help protect from security threats, which are a big concern for banks today.
2. Reducing Complexity While Improving Business Performance
The financial services business has grown much more complex in the past few years. While every organization finds itself challenged by innovations in technology, organizational processes, procedures, and the need to improve business outcomes – banking institutions require fast and reliable network connectivity that can be configured to support multiple branch locations. Banks should look for an IT partner who can deliver efficiencies and lower costs through server virtualization, storage, and data center consolidation. Software-Defined Networking (SD-WAN) is an ideal solution because it securely connects users to business applications and can send data between various locations, meeting business needs faster and more effectively.
3. Ensuring secure application access
Financial services are undergoing the most radical change they’ve experienced in over 100 years as the digital disruption of the industry accelerates with new technologies like Blockchain, Mobile Wallets and Real-Time Payment Systems. At the same time, they face the rising tide of data breaches and hacks with 90% of security professionals at financial services firms concerned about their vulnerability.
Cybercriminals will do anything to monetize your network, your data, and your entire business. Now more than ever, it’s critical to take the right security measures to address regulatory requirements, protect critical revenue generating applications, sensitive banking records, and protect your valued reputation.
Implementing security measures like multi-factor authentication and improved backups and disaster recovery measures will help keep your data safe and are straightforward to implement.
Ready to learn more?
2023 will bring many challenges and opportunities. Teaming up with the right partners will be key to maximizing those opportunities. WIN’s network is built on wholly-owned fiber assets and industry-leading technology which delivers scalable, flexible, high-capacity data transport and protects mission-critical traffic.
We’d welcome the chance to assess your current network assets and build a long term network strategy around your needs for bandwidth, security, cloud connectivity, and business performance. If you would like to learn more, contact us for a no-obligation consultation or email us at [email protected].