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Articles from Compliance

Microsoft Leaders Forum

Compliance: The Right Way Drives Profitability

Compliance is set to become a key differentiator among financial services institutions. Already some forward thinking FSIs are starting to taste the profits of an integrated compliance management strategy while others are struggling with the costs of more fragmented Band-Aid approaches that result in high levels of waste and duplication. This gap will only widen as regulatory requirements increase and as the cost and complexity of compliance swells. By all counts, it is the more holistic approach that will not only enable compliance in the future but result in improved speed-to-market, decreased costs, reduced risk, an enhanced customer experience, and bottom-line benefits to the business. We ask industry experts for their POV on the challenges to achieving an enterprise-wide compliance platform and to weigh in on profitability.

Banking on Business Intelligence: Taking the Fast Route to Nirvana

Although most financial services institutions have made inroads into Business Intelligence (BI), there still is some way to go before the full promise of BI is fulfilled and it is embedded in the enterprise, used by all relevant employees. Microsoft for its part is doing everything it can to speed this process up. Its fast track: Excel.

Excel, used by a large portion of what Microsoft estimates are 500 million company users who have Office licenses, enables Microsoft to deliver pervasive BI and Performance Management to everyone at a fraction of the cost of other BI tools.
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Take Control of your Business: Manage and Mitigate Risks

Today, enterprises are facing a growing number of compliance regulations that require controls to be in place to mitigate risk across many processes within an organization. Areas that are gaining significant interest today are email and records management. Email is recognized as the de facto mission-critical application driving financial institutions today, where any loss or mismanagement is a potential serious issue.

With government regulations, audit requirements, and potential legal disputes, enterprises need their email systems to be properly archived and searchable so as not to hinder business continuity. Email messages need to be accessible 24/7.

Accurate Automated Appraisals Protect the Underinsured

Hurricanes in the South and fires in the West have led to one common discovery across geographies and disasters – many homes are insured for far less than their replacement cost. Don Robinson, a California biologist, had his four-bedroom home insured for $233,000; after wildfires destroyed it a contractor estimated the replacement cost at $460,000, the Associated Press reported.

Charter Bank's New Encryption Device - the Keyboard

At Charter Bank in Bellevue, WA, multi-factor authentication will soon be as close as a keyboard. The bank is using an application from BioPassword, an Issaquah, WA company, to capture a user’s unique typing rhythm and then use that rhythm to validate his identity the next time he logs in.

With BioPassword running on a Windows server, a user with an existing user name types in his password 10 times. The server learns the unique rhythm of his typing and creates a profile and establishes a strong authentication process without using a token or thumbprint reader.

HP TARGETS SERVICE, COMPLIANCE, EFFICIENCY AND OUTSOURCING

As one of the largest enterprise providers to the financial services industry, HP’s financial services strategy has been formed by experience. That experience includes a significant presence in the top 200 banks, top 50 brokerages, top 25 insurance carriers and all 100 of the world’s major stock and commodity exchanges.

From those relationships, and others with firms of various sizes, HP has targeted four key business priorities that can be addressed through industry solutions: customer service, control & compliance, efficiency and outsourcing/offshoring.