Though many industries across the world must follow varying compliance guidelines, the most affected by this requirement are financial institutions. Banks, credit unions, or any organization that handles money and sensitive financial information are prime targets for inappropriate behavior and fraud.

As the cyber risk facing these institutions continues to expand, regulations are becoming more stringent in an effort to protect customers’ private data and funds. Damaging breaches or cyber attacks are not the only worries for financial institutions: these organizations can also face hefty fines and penalties if they’re found to be in violation of compliance.

Although there’s an incredibly long list of the various guidelines financial institutions must comply with, the following are a few of the most important:

  • BSA/AML – The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the primary U.S. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) law, requires financial institutions to comply with government agencies to help detect and report suspicious activity.

  • PCI DSS – The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PSI DSS) set the requirements for organizations accepting or processing payment transactions.

  • Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s (FFIEC) guidelines –The FFIEC is a formal interagency body that is “empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms to promote uniformity in the supervision of financial institutions”.

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Complying with the FFIEC and other regulations requires following best practices that simplify, automate, and modernize processes among a variety of areas. These best practices include:

  • Encryption – Protecting private data through its transmission and storage begins with ensuring that it is encrypted at all times. Encryption can be used to both protect data from disclosure to unauthorized parties and allow security personnel to detect unauthorized changes to data.

  • Authentication – The increasing sophistication of online threats has made verifying the identity of customers paramount in today’s mobile banking environment, with two-factor authentication being the preference. The most common type of authentication methods today include passwords and personal identification numbers (PINs), micro-chip based devices, and biometric identifiers.

  • IT/Cybersecurity – A financial institution’s IT and cybersecurity measures must be strong and comprehensive to combat today’s threats. Best practices include effective firmware control and password management of cameras, NVRs, and switches; third-party risk management; and adhering to the latest data privacy guidelines, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Technology can make it easier for financial institutions to follow these guidelines. For example, Convergint partners with Verint to offer an advanced video management system that provides enterprise-wide health monitoring, audit reporting, and permissions management that can help ensure maximum uptime. This is essential for empowering financial institutions to meet regulatory requirements for video capture.

These solutions can also ensure that verifying compliance or monitoring transactions are no longer tasks that require extensive time and resources. Through features such as user audit trails (which ensure that only authorized people have access to the system) and automated image verification (which alerts when a camera image is no longer the approved image), financial institutions can take a holistic approach to reducing complexity and increasing compliance effectiveness.

It can be difficult to keep up with the ever-growing index of compliance regulations for financial institutions, but their importance and value are clear when it comes to protecting money and sensitive data, two of the world’s most precious items. 

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