Guardian Analytics in conjunction with Ponemon recently released their 2010 Business Banking Trust Study (details here). I am intrigued that the headline touts that “banks have a new troubled asset – their customers.” Forgive me if I am wrong, but customers did not just become a “troubled asset”: not this year…not last year, nor the year before that. Customer churn has always been an issue directly associated with security and thus trust. Perhaps we can revise the statement to say that banks are now aware, or I dare say admitting that security extends beyond passing the GLBA or FFIEC audit. That would be a good place to start.
According to the study “more than half of the respondents (55%) experienced a fraud attack in the last 12 months, 58% of which was enabled by online banking.” Another key finding was that “Banks are unnecessarily exposing themselves to risk and need to change their perceptions of “reasonable security.” I completely agree with this. Reasonable security can be nothing short of daily assessing, monitoring and controlling risks and security compliance. Until security and compliance become continuous, embedded in our cultures, and a way of life we will continue to see breach after breach. Hacking is a way of life, to counter this we need to ensure that we have security policies, strategies and initiatives in place to protect and secure our customer data, our reputation, our revenue, our bottom-line, and our customer trust. And yes in so doing, remain compliant. So we’ve acknowledge that customer trust is at an all time low. Before this “troubled asset” is completely lost, let’s revamp our security initiatives and make Continuous Compliance a mantra in our Financial Institutions. The study is quite interesting and discusses some great opportunities for Financial Institutions.