For the banking and fintech industries, which are often the target of such attacks, it’s crucial to take steps to mitigate risk and ensure sensitive customer data is fully secure.
This is where ISO 27001 can add real value for fintech firms and banks. The standard provides a framework for securing and protecting confidential data. So, how can ISO 27001 change the information security game for banking and fintech cybersecurity?
Building customer trust
Fintech businesses often invest a huge amount of resources into ensuring the protection of customer data. ISO 27001 certification allows you to demonstrate to your customers (and potential customers) that you take cybersecurity seriously by adopting the globally recognised gold “InfoSec” standard.
This investment into certification can also be a USP against competing technology vendors, as earning the trust of your customers and their users is paramount. Being ISO 27001 certified provides assurance that your business has the necessary procedures and processes in place to mitigate risk across the organisation.
Additionally, certification can only be achieved by being successfully audited by independent accredited third-party auditors such as Lloyds Register, and surveillance audits are required annually, with re-audits required every three years. As such, your customers can be safe in the knowledge that your business is putting ongoing effort into maintaining high security standards.
Reducing risk
The finance industry is one of the most highly regulated industries in the world. Providing the evidence you are adhering to the ISO 27001 standard is time consuming, so Hicomply automatically records the evidence that you are adhering to the standard, as well as version control and activity logs, so you don’t have to.
As well as providing a centralised location for your policies and documentation, implementing ISO 27001 with Hicomply software means that all of your data will be contained securely, mitigating the risk of cyber attacks. The software also holds policies, procedures and tasks required for your staff in one area, and flags these to colleagues when necessary.
This means that the whole company can be held accountable, enabling you to ensure compliance company-wide.
ISO 27001: Information security for fintech
As we mentioned previously, we know that the sector is particularly highly regulated, and fintech cybersecurity is key. Therefore, it’s crucial that you take steps to prevent downtime, address cybersecurity challenges and prevent data breaches.
It can seem like an overwhelming task, and ensuring compliance with various global laws and standards, such as EU GDPR, can be extremely complex to boot. It’s easy to find yourself facing a suite of different information security requirements and regulations for different countries! ISO 27001, on the other hand, provides a framework that can bring together different laws and regulations into one centralised location – your ISMS.
So, while it can take longer to set up in its initial phases, long-term, ISO 27001, for fintechs, provides real efficiencies and ensures compliance. Once independently certified, ISO 27001 and your associated ISMS provide a centralised system for information governance across IT security and information security throughout your company.
Cutting down the certification timeframe
We know that achieving (and keeping) ISO 27001 is a time-consuming process, and often presents a logistical challenge, as well as taking up precious hours of your time. A digital ISMS solution can reduce your internal management time and also reduce the amount of time it takes to achieve certification. It’s possible to reduce the timeframe between starting the process all the way to auditing and certification down to 4-6 months, rather than a full year of preparation and implementation.
Digital solutions can also house your entire ISMS setup and give you a transparent view of your documents, current policies, and therefore progress towards certification. The Hicomply software solution, for instance, provides auto-populating templates and generates a log of evidence of tasks that have been completed to ensure transparency, which means your auditor can quickly and easily view information.
Final thought
The process of becoming ISO 27001 certified can be a daunting one for fintechs, and can seem like an impossible task when it comes to updating documentation and ensuring company-wide compliance. But it doesn’t have to be. Software solutions such as Hicomply can half the time frame and cost it takes to achieve compliance, and continually add value with automated admin tasks, ongoing risk management and more.
Interested in seeing how Hicomply can work for you? Book a demo.