Wissam Acra, Regional Sales Manager at Genetec, explains to Security MEA, why banks should continue with their digitization and how Genetec’s solutions can support them in this journey to offer seamless and secure digital banking experience.
What do you mean by unified solutions and why should banks resort to this now more than ever?
The financial industry has been overwhelmed by silo’s whether it is with people, technology, or processes. However, to meet the demands of an increasingly complex threat landscape and evolving customer needs, banks require an enterprise-class, centralized security system that not only safeguards people, assets, and data but also evolves with them to meet future growth. A unified security system allows them to monitor video, manage access, validate ATM transactions, and react to various situations using a single interface, which is something that is essential now more than ever, with the increased cyber-attacks and the quick digital transformation shift that is occurring.
Without a unified solution, large-scale banks have trouble managing all their systems or determining if they are meeting cybersecurity protection requirements at all branches. The reason this is highly suggested now more than ever is due to severe cost-cutting measures to arrest the decline in profits resulting from a sharp decline in revenues and a potential spike in non-performing assets.
How are the banks in the Middle East placed in their journey of digitization?
The use of digital solutions has been reinforced by the Covid-19 pandemic. With the unprecedented global disruption prompting the “work from home” environment, paper-based processes have become impractical, if not impossible. The pandemic resulted in a rapid adoption of digital banking; a trend that will probably continue as new technologies improve options for customers. Banking in the Middle East is undertaking a digital transformation and businesses are expecting quicker, more simplified, and efficient solutions and banks are evolving rapidly to assist their clients’ growing needs–fine-tuning existing technologies. In response to online banking, branches are shifting their services from transaction-based to customer-oriented, serving as financial advisors to customers who expect a seamless & secure experience.
The fact that the digital banking trend will continue shows in a recent study which reveals that 76% of people in the UAE prefer digital banking, which is a result to technology advancements and country-wide initiatives that have been improved.
What are the major hurdles the banks face in this region while they try to adopt digital banking?
Since moving towards digital transformation is becoming a shared goal, the industry is set to unavoidably go through challenges along the way. The banking industry is faced by the increasing necessity to deliver optimized efficiency, speed, and transparency for today’s customer. Hence, challenges for banks arise with the obstacles in knowing where to invest along with being up to date with the launch and development of new technologies partnerships in a fast-paced world.
To overcome these challenges, banks must prioritize investing in innovative technologies, whether through their security solutions or providing the most innovative customer experience, that will improve their client offerings and define a strategic roadmap for a long-term competitive position. The future lies in creating a competitive edge and embracing the digital age.
What are the products in Genetec’s portfolio that can help banks overcome these hurdles?
Breaking down silos and building a connected bank goes beyond physical security.
In an increasingly interconnected industry with constantly changing threat landscapes, banks need more than interconnected tools to keep their data secure and operations running smoothly. A unified security platform like Genetec Security Center provides the foundation that will centralize banks security monitoring through one intuitive interface. Centralizing on a unified security portfolio will help banks lower cyber risk and enhance incident-response and investigations.
The Genetec banking and financial portfolio offers a central touchpoint for all the solutions, allowing banks to scale their business to meet today’s threats and plan for tomorrow.
How are the solutions that are offered by Genetec different from those offered by their competitors?
At Genetec, we believe that forward-thinking technology can provide a platform that facilitates communication and collaboration to better secure physical and cybersecurity environment, protect customer data and increase operational efficiency to deliver an optimal customer experience.
Unlike an integrated platform, Genetec allows deploying a single platform that embeds multiple security systems. From reducing the cost of maintenance & ease of upgrades to centralized monitoring of branch location from corporate and using video to validate alarms, Genetec enables banks to filter out the noise and prioritize efforts to protect profit, all within one intuitive interface.
How secure are the solutions offered by Genetec?
Cybersecurity attacks are growing in frequency and sophistication, and banks are amongst the first to be targeted.
We understand bringing in more devices can also make banks more vulnerable to cyber-attacks, which is why everything we build is infused with end-to-end security and privacy by design. We protect all components from our software to certified partner hardware with dual authentication and hardening practices.