The increasing volume of data that financial firms hold is making it difficult for them to control information and ensure sensitive correspondence is managed effectively. This lack of data management control is putting financial firms at enhanced risk of data breaches, insider attacks and poor client service.
For example, research from Varonis found the financial services industry is at increased risk of insider breaches as a result of employees having unrestricted access to edit, move, and view corporate data.
The 2021 Financial Services data risk report found that 64% of financial organizations’ employees leave at least 1,000 sensitive files openly accessible to all their employees. Furthermore, the report found that the average employee has access to 13% of their organisation’s files and the largest financial firms have more than 20 million documents freely available to all employees.
This vastly increases the risk of insider attacks, as well as malware and ransomware attacks. As a result, this leaves financial firms exposed to not only the risk of data breaches but the ever-stringent non-compliance penalties of data protection regulations like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Financial organisations, therefore, require tools that help them to enforce controls and stricter access rights around data and document management. They also need to be able to simplify the process of providing clear audit trails and reporting.
From risk to opportunity
Reducing risk is more crucial to financial firms than in most other industries, given the volume of data regulations they typically need to comply with. Failing to control document management can leave firms vulnerable to cyber threats, financial risk, and reputational damage. So, they need to ensure employees securely manage the email correspondence they receive, and that project information is consistently filed into the correct location and is easily discoverable by anyone who requires access to it.
For example, financial organisations can now deploy solutions and implement secure email and document practices that meet the requirements of data regulations. Email and document management can help organisations to ensure all project or client correspondence is automatically stored in the correct, secure folder or server location, which is only available to people with appropriate access rights.
This not only guarantees that all communication is stored securely, but also that important project/client information and deliverables can be sourced quickly when chasing payments.
Taking control of financial data
Mail Manager is designed to help financial firms address the email and document management issues they are facing. Our Outlook plugin learns employees’ filing habits and uses Artificial Intelligence to automate the filing of emails and attachments into the most appropriate location.
Mail Manager ensures that every users emails are automatically saved to the correct location and securely filed to centralised folders, away from their local email server. This helps businesses and employees to become better organised and protects their sensitive information internal and external threats. It also provides the peace of mind that important documents are stored securely while ensuring that anyone that should have access to information is able to quickly find it whenever they need it.
Implementing tighter controls over records management helps firms to better manage which employees have access to which data and provide a complete audit trail. This prevents unauthorised access and increases control of corporate information. Managing data and documents also helps to restrict employees from stealing data, as well as ensuring emails can’t get locked away in personal inboxes or get lost when an employee leaves the company.
Tighter data controls help financial firms to comply with data privacy regulations and avoid the fines and reputational damage of non-compliance. As a result, they also know exactly where documents and critical correspondence are located at all times.
Reducing your data risk
As financial firms collect more data it becomes increasingly important for them to have tools in place to securely store and manage information. Mail Manager ensures that financial firms can meet the strictest of data regulations, store and manage information more effectively, and reduce the risks of breaches. Our quick to implement and roll out software immediately results in email correspondence being filed to the correct, shared location, which is only accessible to employees who should have access to it, and then uses powerful search features to help relevant employees find it at the click of a button when required.
See how we help financial services firms such as Axxima and Duff & Phelps here, or read our case study with accounting and finance firm Azets here.
