Financial services organisations are under increasing pressure to differentiate and gain a competitive edge against increasingly cloud native FinTech businesses. This paired with the ever-present security risks and strict compliant requirements leaves financial firms searching for better ways to serve their customers while keeping overhead costs down.
Disruptive newcomers are taking a fresh look at the way financial services are done, from investments to personal banking, and leaning on technology to set themselves apart. Digital-only banks like Monzo have gained a competitive edge in recent years by making it easy for customers to manage their finances online and saving on the cost of physical branches. Meanwhile investment apps like Robinhood have appealed to vast numbers of potential investors by putting access to the stock market in the palm of their hand. The UK Government’s Kalifa Review of UK FinTech cited 71% of UK citizens are now using the services of at least one fintech company.
Consumers are taking note of these new services and expectations of financial firms are rising. 82% of consumers expect their financial service digital experiences to match or exceed that of tech giants, a number that remains consistent across age groups. Meanwhile, only 28% of respondents say they’re satisfied with the services provided by their financial institutions (FIs).
Amid the disruption in the market, financial institutions are reevaluating the services they offer and embracing the opportunity of cloud technology. According to research by Frost & Sullivan, 76% of financial firms cite ‘improve customer experience’ as a top goal in cloud adoption. According to Microsoft, they continue to see strong cloud adoption from the financial services industry. More than 80% of the world’s largest banks and more than 75% of the global systemically important financial institutions use Azure.
It’s clear to see why cloud adoption, and more specifically hosting in Azure, is popular in financial services. Azure allows financial firms to rise to the challenge of the changing market by giving them a secure, reliable and scalable platform to build on. The pay-as-you-use model allows financial firms to limit their spend to only what they need, rather than paying out for costly on-premises servers which require significant up-front investment and maintenance costs.
Scale your resources up and down as you need them and optimise your Azure environment to automatically turn off any resources you’re not using. With Azure, the cost is based on your consumption, so you’re never wasting money on capacity you don’t need.
It’s not just the overheads savings drawing financial firms to Azure, it’s the security, compliance and governance features too. Whether you work with clients internationally or solely based in the UK, our experts can establish resource governance rules to ensure your resources are always maintained in compliance with the relevant restrictions. Plus, as an Azure Expert MSP, we will build your Azure environment with security in mind, based on industry best practices and the latest threat intelligence. With the help of our experts you can be confident your environment is secure and compliant from day one.
Implementing Azure is easy and hassle-free with our Azure services. We’ll establish your Azure environment and make managing it a breeze with our Cloud Management Portal. Review all the vital information you need to know about your cloud environment on demand and at a glance, from your spend to security posture and CO2 consumption.
Get started on your cloud journey and find out all your need to know with advice tailored to your needs with a free expert consultation.
The era of hybrid working has begun, and it offers an opportunity for the financial services sector to level-up the way they work.
With only 20% of financial services professionals agreeing that the typical employee needs to be in the office three days or more per week, there’s growing demand for flexibility in working practices. Meanwhile, 70% of financial services employers believe staff should be coming into the office at least three days per week. This gulf in expectations between employers and their teams is a challenge for management but one thing is clear – some balance of hybrid working is the new normal for financial services.
With hybrid working comes some challenges, a common one is how to keep teams connected from anywhere and blend office-based and remote working practices for smoother, more secure communications and file management. According to KPMG’s report, some of the top challenges to hybrid and remote working are establishing processes and support (21%), employee tracking and technology (18%) and communication (10%).
Establishing and maintaining consistency in communication and collaborative tools both in and out of the office is essential to a successful hybrid working set-up. Microsoft Teams is more than just a chat tool, offering everything you need to keep remote collaboration smooth and consistent from anywhere.
The basic, out-of-the-box features Teams brings to your workflow are instant chats, video meetings, file collaboration, and department channels to keep everything organised. Set up channels for specific priorities within your department to keep everything you need filed in the same place for easy access, updates and discussions. Check in and chat with colleagues in the main channel feed and add Planner to the mix to assign tasks and manage deadlines.
However, Teams’ capabilities don’t end there. With the support of our Modern Communications experts, you can add Teams-powered desk phones, teams meeting rooms and even Teams-enabled contact centres to unify your communications under the Teams umbrella. Not only does this simplify your processes and consolidate your software stack, but unified communications also bring the security and compliance features of Microsoft Teams to all you do.
The financial services sector is more competitive than ever, with customer experience making or breaking organisations from the most tight knit of investment firms to the biggest of banks. In the era of up-and-coming FinTech businesses setting the pace for customer expectations, it’s never been more important to get it right.
Great customer communications start with great internal communications. The right tools allow your teams to do what they do best with the insights you need to go above and beyond. Without them, your communications are at risk of becoming disjointed, slow, and failing to meet evolving customer demands.
Teams-powered desk phones and meeting rooms allow your teams to communicate and collaborate smoothly, as well as make in and out-bound calls all from one place. By keeping these communications centralised, management can oversee call volumes and activity to adjust for the best possible performance as needed. Plus, you can rest assured your communications and any associated files both internally and externally are secure and compliant.
If your team is managing large volumes of in-bound calls, a modern contact centre is essential. The days of landline-based call centres have passed, with modern cloud-native solutions offering next generation performance and insights. Not only do Teams-based contact centres consolidate your licenses by bringing your communications under your Microsoft technology stack, but they also allow you to access vital analytics and act on them as needed. Create dashboards with call volumes, wait times and other insights so you can see how your contact centre is performing on a single pane of glass.
Implementing these solutions is easy and hassle-free, with our Modern Communications managed services. We work in partnership with Anywhere365 to deliver the Teams-powered tools financial services organisations need to enable modern communications methods.
Get started on your modern communications journey and find out all your need to know with advice tailored to your need with a free expert consultation.
It goes without saying that the Financial Services industry and its financial data is a prime target for cybercrime. With remote working and acquisitions both proving additional challenges during the pandemic, a Ponemon Institute survey reveals that 70% of UK financial sector firms were victims of cyberattacks in 2020.
Credentials remain highly targeted. According to Verizon’s 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, credentials are involved in 61% of breaches – as the fastest data point to compromise, this raises a huge compliance issue within a strictly regulated sector. Effective identity management is critical for banks, fintechs and other financial service professionals responsible for handling millions of personal and financial data records.
So how can firms secure their data to protect users and customers from identity theft? Here are Transparity’s top 3 recommended IT solutions…
Employees working remotely on unsecure personal devices are at high risk of cyberattack. To mitigate increasingly sophisticated threats, organisations must take a Zero Trust approach to endpoint management. Microsoft Endpoint Manager can be set up to require proof of identity through Multi-Factor Authentication and Conditional Access rules before users can access applications and files. This helps to secure endpoints and protect your organisation against malicious outsiders, by ensuring only authorised personnel have access to sensitive data. According to a 2021 Statista survey, 72% of organisations plan to adopt Zero Trust security, or have already adopted it.
Transparity migrated a private equity firm and investment group, also modernising their on-premises infrastructure to futureproof hybrid working. Hosting servers on Azure created the scalable, secure infrastructure needed to accommodate new acquisitions moving forward. The firm can now also more easily track which users have accessed data or systems and on which devices, helping to shut down external threats and maintain compliance.
Through Microsoft 365, we set up Mobile Device Management with Single Sign-On and Multi-Factor Authentication for extra protection against unauthorised usage and data access – even if staff are working remotely on personal devices. This all-in-one, Cloud-first solution allowed the firm to move from CapEx to OpEx expenditure by eliminating infrastructure maintenance costs, whilst effectively protecting sensitive data across the organisation.
As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Transparity hold multiple Advanced Specialisations, including:
To learn more about how Microsoft solutions can improve cybersecurity and IT governance in your organisation, register for a 3-day workshop with Transparity’s expert consultants.
