Deploying Location-Agnostic Connectivity and Security Solutions

To optimise their operational performance in the era of physical distancing, FinTech companies have to go beyond the basic data and voice services that tie them to particular workspaces. However, while working from remote locations and using sensitive data, they must also toughen the security of their devices and network. Tata Tele Business Services has an array of digital solutions to meet both the objectives effectively.

The FinTech industry represents the next phase of evolution for financial services wherein digitalisation and technology-focused startups are redefining the products and solutions hitherto offered by the traditional BFSI segment.

Today, there are online platforms to facilitate quick peer-to-peer loans for businesses and individuals, automated methods to identify and quantify risks, algorithm-based investments, and systematic ways to optimise portfolios for asset management. The use of e-wallets has also grown over the past five years.

A key requirement to fuel the technologies that support the FinTech industry is uninterrupted data connectivity – companies and independent professionals managing the transactions for their clients must be able to use their custom apps from anywhere and have an adequate bandwidth for data-rich processes. The need for remote working facilities has only increased since the outbreak of COVID-19.

They must also be able to communicate with customers through effective voice and text-based channels. Most importantly, their online network, communication platforms and the data stored in their devices must be completely secure. Almost 56% of the respondents in the PwC Global FinTech Survey 2016¹ identified information security and privacy as threats to the rise of FinTech.

If you are also an entity in this segment and wish to give your team the freedom to work from anywhere while integrating enterprise-grade security into their operations, Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) has a host of products and solutions to address your needs:

Smart Internet

Vanilla broadband connections do not meet the professional requirements of FinTech companies effectively. They need the uncontended connection, symmetrical speeds and assured uptime offered by an Internet Leased Line (ILL). To provide all the advantages of ILL to professionals who work from remote locations, TTBS offers a managed solution called the Smart Internet.

With this always-on plug & play service, your field employees and the teams working from homes (or multiple offices) can use the Internet and all their online software systems securely. They get adequate bandwidth to run multimedia apps without latency issues. Smart Internet brings best-in-class uptime backed by an SLA. The cost benefits come in forms of zero-CapEx and pay-per-use billing model.

As the number of users in your organisation increase, you can increase the number of licenses to give each one of them the same state-of-the-art connectivity solution.

Smart Hosted PBX

Powered by session initiation protocol (SIP) technology, our Smart Hosted PBX allows FinTech professionals to use their Internet connections for making free voice calls from anywhere.

It does not need any investment in hardware. We establish your telecom infrastructure on our virtual private branch exchange (PBX) hosted in the cloud. The contact centre agents in your team simply log in to the call patch application of the service which connects them to the central dashboard and dialler for phone calls.

They can then use the click-to-call option that initiates SIP calls to existing customers and new leads for the business. The service works with the browsers used by the agents on their PC, laptop or mobile device.

FinTech teams that need to connect frequently with customers for updates on their financial transactions, loan EMI reminders, KYC procedures and other business processes find a cost-effective calling solution in Smart Hosted PBX. It comes with call monitoring and recording abilities for ease of performance analysis, training and feedback. Scaling of calling operations is easy with this cloud-hosted PBX as licenses for new channels can be bought at any time during the subscription.

Endpoint Security

FinTech professionals have sensitive customer data stored on their personal laptops, tablets and smartphones used for work. Under the BYOD and work-from-home policies, they connect to not only the usually-secure Internet network of their office, but also the vanilla broadband and Wi-Fi services at other locations.

When you must secure your employees’ devices and ensure that the data on their drives is not vulnerable to looming cyber threats, the TTBS Endpoint Security is the service you need.

As a scalable Software as a Service (SaaS) tool, our endpoint security does not need any master server installation in your office. It safeguards endpoints for application control and blocks the use of potentially harmful apps on a device. With end-to-end encryption, it also prevents data loss from wired and wireless devices.

To monitor the status of security in all computers using the solution, system administrators have a centralised console. It lets them take additional precautions such as blocking USB ports of a laptop and restricting access to risky websites.

With Endpoint Security, money management for customers and compliance with government regulations become safer and more efficient for FinTech companies.

Email Security

The emails that we receive every day can carry a variety of threats for computing devices. TTBS helps to keep them at bay with its Email Security. It safeguards Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, Office 365, Gmail and other email accounts used at work.

TTBS Email Security is backed by FirstWave Cloud Technology’s ESP™ email software technology, Cisco-based ESA/IronPort, and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) technologies.

It builds a strong shield against spyware, malware, viruses and spam that come with emails. It also identifies and thwarts more complex threats such as spear phishing, whaling, typo domain and spoofing attacks.

By configuring Email Security on their device, FinTech workers are assured of data loss prevention, advanced content control, quick disaster recovery and 32 days trace replay.

This feature-rich security solution is easy to set up and works non-intrusively in the background. For simplified content management, it has analytics and policy enforcement module.

Multifactor Authentication

Another way to secure the devices and work processes in the FinTech industry is multifactor authentication (MFA). It requires users to provide more than one kind of authentication to validate the legitimacy of an operation.

Powered by Cisco Duo, the TTBS MFA is a zero-trust security solution for exclusive access to apps and data stored on personal devices. It is quick to configure and provides multiple authentication methods, giving users the option to choose the ones that best fit their work processes ¬– these could be soft or hard tokens, push authentications or U2F.

With MFA, only authorised users can access a device and its contents. Hackers cannot even remotely access or manipulate the device, its applications and the network that it uses.

Virtual Firewall

To monitor incoming and outgoing traffic from the devices that action FinTech processes, you can use firewalls that have been the first line of defence in IT security for more than 25 years.

TTBS offers an enterprise-grade Virtual Firewall solution configurable on any device, at any location. It monitors all content accessed on the machine and checks potential threats in seconds.

The Virtual Firewall integrates application awareness and deep-packet inspection to give users more robust control over applications while detecting and blocking malicious threats. It is powered by the industry-leading Palo Alto Networks firewall technology and is simple to operate even with advanced security features.

Web Security

To prevent complex cyber threats from impacting critical data and software used by FinTech employees, TTBS has an advanced online security solution based on DNS technology. The solution is powered by Cisco Talos intelligence and Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), and we have termed it ‘Do Big Web Security’.

It effectively determines the intent of web requests, URLs and files on a device. The solution evaluates their nature to check if they are safe, risky or malicious. Accordingly, it routes, blocks or sends them for further analysis as per the results delivered.

Do Big Web Security is a real-time and comprehensive way to gain visibility into online and device environment. Its ability to eliminate threats before they can reach the endpoints of networks and devices makes it the right choice for workers in the technology-ruled FinTech domain.

From web filtering and category-based URL filtering to collective security intelligence and portal reporting, the wide range of tailored features makes Do Big Web Security an enterprise-grade service for safeguarding devices and networks.

Convenient delivery of service and security of data is essential to win the trust of customers

India is poised to ride the FinTech wave with the widening Internet subscription base and rising middle-class incomes. The millennials who have entered the workspace expect ease of banking, loan disbursal and investment solutions from the BFSI industry. FinTech companies that can offer them technology-enabled services must, therefore, have intelligent connectivity solutions and strong security architectures to win and retain such consumers. That’s where customised offerings from Tata Tele Business Services help.

To know more about our solutions for the FinTech sector, call us on 1800-266-1800.

Source

http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/financial-services/fintech-survey/report.html