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The coronavirus crisis has forced millions of people globally to work from home, in turn reducing social contact and minimizing the associated risk of transmitting the disease. Organizations worldwide have had to embrace remote work as the "new normal"; it is, for many, no longer an option but a necessity.
Remote working must maintain compliance
Remote working can place a high burden on data security compliance, especially in the financial services industry. All of the risks that remote working brings to a company can impact compliance with data protection and privacy regulations. Regulations such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) don't stop just because someone is working from home.
However, you cannot rely on the fact that all cloud-based remote working solutions will adhere to the regulations and compliance processes that are in place in the office.
One question financial services organizations need to verify with their vendor is if their technology supports customer teams working from home to the same levels of compliance as when they work from the corporate office. This is particularly true with regards to the recording of interactions, including any internal consultations that take place when an advisor is seeking clarification or guidance from an internal colleague while the client is on hold. This also extends to those organizations whose customer teams are continuing to handle card payments over the phone too.
"Being in a highly regulated financial services provider, Tilney needed to ensure that even when working remotely their customer team continued to comply when providing financial advice," said Ian Crawley, Infrastructure Support Engineer, Unified Communications for Tilney Group Ltd. "Tilney's decision to migrate all of their 1,500 users over to a Mitel private cloud solution in 2019 ensured they were ready to support their remote working policies. The Mitel solution which incorporates enterprise grade call recording powers their voice communications with access to applications delivered through seamless access via Tilney's VMware horizon thin client solution, allowing business to continue as usual.
The increase in fintech apps
The coronavirus has driven a massive 72% rise in the use of fintech apps in Europe, according to new research published by deVere Group. Fintech app usage is part of a fundamental adaption to life in lockdown. And the sharp increase in app adoption and usage is an indication that the long-term legacy of the coronavirus will be an increasingly digital and online society.
Such rises in the use of fintech apps come amid a general growth in the use of digital technology, as people find ways of working, communicating, and entertaining themselves in the face of the pandemic. The question is, will this shift to the digital endure after the coronavirus pandemic is over? It is highly likely to for fintech and banking apps, at least because adoption of such apps was already growing steadily before the coronavirus outbreak.
Leverage 45 years of expertise
There have been suggestions that, if we had experienced the pandemic even 15 years ago, many organizations simply wouldn't have been able to continue operating on a remote basis. This inspired us to look back at the Mitel's innovation over the years.
Back in 1997, Mitel were beginning to support what we know today as remote "teleworker" users, using digital phones rather than IP phones. This was the time that the Blackberry was also beginning to emerge, the first Android-based smartphone. The Mitel digital phones facilitated an employee working from a home office using a digital extension as if they were based in the main corporate headquarters.
Move forward to 2004 and Mitel's Voice over IP telephony solutions had already been in the market for four years when the Teleworker was launched, along with the initial Mitel UC solution, YA (Your Assistant). This innovation incorporated the capability for both an IP handset as well as a PC softphone to securely connect over the internet without the use of third party VPN services.
Now in 2020, these capabilities have evolved dramatically but they remain core to Mitel supporting clients in a remote working capacity, providing secure, encrypted communications while continuing to be recorded for compliance, whether this is for a back office worker or a customer experience advisor.
Future changes – Mitel is ready
Innovation is part of Mitel's DNA and our ability to serve the financial services sector is stronger than ever. Many of Mitel's customers who use cloud public, private or hybrid cloud technology were able to quickly adapt to support their employees operating securely from home. Their challenge wasn't about how to enable communication, it was more around the provision of laptops to employees who were traditionally office based.
The financial sector will always have to deal with high value, sensitive data, which is put at even greater risk in uncontrolled environments such as home working. The power of the Mitel cloud technology has many aspects that are a great fit for the financial services market, ensuring that connecting and collaborating becomes just as effortless and seamless. And, most importantly, compliant, secure and reliable.
