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Cloud Faxing Best Practices for Financial Institutions

For anyone professionally associated with the finance industry, the question, “Is cloud faxing secure enough for financial institutions?” is an extremely valid one. Naturally, today’s business headlines seem to be constantly filled with one nightmare scenario after another of a major financial institution or a member of their C-suite falling prey to malicious activities from hackers and malware. And of the stories that make it to the headlines, that list doesn’t even include the simple mishandling of sensitive data that can erupt into a costly non-compliance issue.

Securing Financial Data: Exploring the Viability of Cloud Faxing for Banks

What’s important to note when it comes to how to implement cloud faxing for banks and other financial institutions is, first and foremost, the cost of not doing so successfully. Let’s say your business still relies on traditional on-site fax machines. Many people outside the finance industry might not appreciate why such an old form of technology still manages to keep its foothold in your daily business proceedings. Yet anyone in banking will immediately understand how transferring documents such as those containing mortgage, stock, tax or licensure information needs to be handled in a secure manner — and despite its age, faxing is still considered to be a highly secure method of transmitting information.

Compliance and Security

To mishandle information of this importance is simply not an option, especially when failing to comply with industry standards such as the Financial Modernization Act of 1999 — or Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) — can easily result in fines of $100,000 for each separate occurrence of a violation. With mandatory regulations like the GLBA, as well as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) affecting how banks, brokerage houses, car dealers, mortgage firms and other financial institutions do business, it’s no wonder why a more secure data transfer and management system than emailing or on-site faxing is so attractive to many organizations in the financial sector.

For this reason, it’s worth considering some of the best practices financial institutions such as banks can put in place to accomplish the proper handling of confidential information.

Cloud Faxing Best Practices for Banks and Financial Institutions

Whether it’s a bank transferring financially sensitive information to an overseas location or an automotive dealership sending a customer’s data to a lender, the following best practices eliminate many of the concerns, problems and costs associated with traditional fax machines and on-site fax servers:

Leverage Cloud-Based Fax Solutions to Win Consumers’ Trust

There’s probably nothing more important to a bank or financial institution than its reputation. And for that reputation to remain strong, the institution’s consumers must feel a high level of trust when it comes to how their information is handled. By highlighting that your financial institution uses a cloud faxing solution — like the one offered by Softlinx, where each transmission and receipt of sensitive data is encrypted, secure and reliable — you can inspire trust and attract more consumers.

Send Faxes Securely

What could be easier than sending an email with a document attached? But try that route with sensitive financial information and you risk a fine. However, instead of having to walk over to an office fax machine, scan and send a document, with secure cloud faxing services, you have the option of attaching a document to an email with the recipient’s information and then send it from wherever you are, so long as you have access to the internet. Once sent, both the email and attached information are fully encrypted. You still get all of the benefits of a fully compliant document transfer system, but with far more mobility and speed.

Receive Faxes Securely

For those in charge of document handling, one of the greatest challenges associated with receiving faxes is what to do with them once they’ve been received. In traditional faxing, this means keeping a close watch on where faxes come in and how they are subsequently handled. Plus, if a fax ever needs to be resent, someone has to watch over this process too. But once a company employs a cloud-based fax solution, all received faxes can remain safely in the cloud — encrypted and inaccessible to unauthorized users. And what’s really a major breakthrough in document management is that after an intended reader has reviewed a fax, the fax can then be stored indefinitely in the cloud for immediate retrieval whenever necessary. Of course, the cloud storage option need not be employed if a particular business’s security protocol doesn’t allow for remote data storage.

Establish Administrative Oversight

One of the best practices for any financial organization that wants to remain in compliance with document management standards is to institute robust administrative oversight over all document handling processes. In support of this practice, the ReplixDoc service Web portal from Softlinx gives a designated administrator the ability to monitor all document activities, set global options like message notifications and manage and update user account information.

Save Money With Modernization

Since, out of all businesses, financial institutions should practice enterprise-wide solid fiscal planning, the migration to cloud faxing makes for a smart business practice. You say “goodbye” to the costs associated with hardware, paper, ink and even dedicated phone lines. In the place of a costly capital-expenditure model, your company moves to a pay-as-you-go or subscription-based operating expenditure that requires less investment and offers far more flexibility and scalability, along with all of the security features previously mentioned.

What’s more, unlike on-site faxing that can result in paperwork being mishandled or machinery suffering from breakdowns, the dependability and scalability of a service like the one from Softlinx means you never miss a fax due to an empty ink cartridge or have to wait for an open phone line due to a busy signal. And if you experience a sudden surge in faxes, that’s not a problem for a scalable cloud-based solution.

Softlinx Offers Financial Institutions Best-in-Class Service and Maximum Uptime

Softlinx offers cloud-based faxing solutions and data management through fully secure data centers. In addition, with Softlinx you enjoy 99.9 percent uptime as stated in our service level agreement. To learn more about how cloud-based faxing service can benefit your financial institution, contact us or schedule a live demo. Or, if you prefer, call (800) 899-7724 to speak directly with a Softlinx representative.

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