Miss Mary Malkovich is having a bad day. Her dog, Blevins, has chewed up her checkbook and she needs a replacement. She tries to access her bank account online, but a forgotten password leads to a drawn-out verification process. Mary finally gets in but notices that her address is incorrect. A lack of a self-service option forces her to call up a representative. Then Blevins chews through the cord of her computer. She drives 20 miles to her nearest bank branch to get her issue resolved. There, she learns that her account has been targeted for fraud. She goes back home to get her birth certificate and passport to verify her identity.
Blevins has chewed them both up.
Besides needing a way to stop Blevins, Mary desperately needs a bank with a proper Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) solution. Do not neglect the role of CIAM services in finance. They encapsulate user experience, account security, and efficient performance. Yet all too often it is taken for granted that customers should expect to have a bad time at the bank. You can stand out among a sea of mediocre customer experiences by instituting proper CIAM services.
CIAM Services in Finance Eases Friction
CIAM services in finance cover the full range of user experience. One of the most important and underserved are the needs of customer onboarding. Account creation is often the first interaction a customer has with an enterprise. An accessible pipeline goes a long way on many fronts. A well-designed user interface results in better retention and fewer drop-offs in the middle of the process. Additionally, it increases the chances of a customer entering accurate information as their attention is not focused on frustrations. This also applies to properly wiping sensitive personal data during off-boarding, providing an additional layer of security.
After establishing an account, the business must build a good rapport with the customer. Each login is an opportunity for a customer to think more highly of your service. It also might be unpleasant enough to make them wonder if they would be better off elsewhere. A well-made CIAM platform should include self-service support, automated curation, secure monitoring, unobtrusive security patches, SSO, and MFA. These features, despite being highly technical, have a direct impact on the average customer. They avoid common pain points such as service calls, excessive alerts, and disruptions in service.
Of course, the best thing you can do for your customers is keep their sessions as short and simple as possible. This is why robust self-service is so crucial. Instituting a suitable self-service apparatus requires extensive work by User Experience (UX) experts. Additionally, substantial consideration must be given to what information a customer shares with your systems. Do not ask for anything more than the absolute minimum of personal data, as every piece of information is one more prize for a potential hacker. A well executed CIAM solution enhances security at the same time it improves the quality of customer care.
CIAM Services in Finance Mean Security You Can Brag About
The benefits of CIAM services in finance extend to the realm of security as much as they do for convenience. A report by Veritis Transcend found that consumer customers lose an average of $1,446 per financial fraud incident. Business customers lose even more, suffering average losses of $10,312 per incident. The best breaches never happen; breach prevention should be the first of many layered defenses. Active and automated monitoring helps safeguard important data. By setting a perimeter around each identity, enterprises can cover the whole of their identity apparatus, instituting protections on every part of an attack surface.
However, hackers are always trying to find a way in. Despite best efforts, humans will slip up which demands quick remediation. The first part of remediation is instituting a set of parameters around what constitutes suspicious behavior. Engaging with a managed identity service is a good first step towards this end. The next is active monitoring for suspicious activity and notifying both to the customer and to the enterprise the instant it happens. In this way, CIAM achieves greater security and performance at the same time.
Finally, users need quick support to secure their identities. As stated, self-service should be a given. It gives direct feedback to a user that their sensitive data and assets are secure. Self-service also allows customers to attend to a problem much more quickly than waiting on an employee. Of course, active customer support by helpdesk employees should also be in the cards. However, CIAM helps on that front as well by making verification and authentication information easily accessible and verifiable by employees.
User Experience is for Partners and Employees Too
Your investments into CIAM are more versatile than you might realize. With the right planning, you can utilize your CIAM investments across different sectors of your enterprise. Many think of CIAM in finance as purely customer driven. But, when paired with a larger IAM platform, the impact the system has on your partners and employees may surprise you. This may seem counterintuitive when the prevailing corporate mindset focuses on stretching employees to the limits of their value. However, providing your internal users with as good of a system as you give your customers is not only possible, but surprisingly straightforward.
The legwork has already been done on creating a good experience for identity management for your customers. That same system, albeit with delineated roles and privileges, can be utilized internally. Such an integration also enhances your overall risk posture. Your business should already have substantial security capabilities via a strong IAM platform. Through integration with an IGA and PAM apparatus, your AM and CIAM systems become much more secure. Breach events become more easily clamped down on and remediated.
CIAM services clearly demonstrates the adage that what is good for the customer is good for the business. By investing in necessary IAM platforms, your enterprise stands to improve UX, customer security, and internal efficiency. Financial institutions survive on their ability to convince customers that their service is the best option available. You are in an environment where your competitors can easily make the CIAM investments you might pass over. All it takes is a little word of mouth or a publicized breach to lose customer confidence. Choose to build that trust instead.
