The technology behind trust in finance

What appears to the customer as a single interaction relies on a web of secure, networked systems working together. Resilient connectivity allows data to move securely and reliably across branches, core systems, cloud environments and outside services. Resilience increasingly depends on understanding not only what happens within the institution, but also across the external services it relies on.

The visibility gap is large. Although 68% of financial services respondents say they have advance visibility into security threats before issues occur, only 3% say the same of third-party and supply-chain dependencies, according to the Economist Enterprise Technology Resilience Index.

“Customers expect that they can access account information or make a payment whenever they want, wherever they happen to be,” says Joe Drygas, vice president of global enterprise business at AT&T. “A resilient infrastructure makes those seamless digital experiences possible, which builds trust and loyalty.”

The survey reflects that link: nearly nine in ten financial services respondents say technology resilience is very or critically important to retaining clients during disruption.

As systems become increasingly interconnected, financial institutions must consider external dependencies as they modernise. Operational resilience is therefore not just an IT concern. It also helps institutions to maintain customer trust, to meet regulatory expectations around continuity and third-party risk, and to support growth.

Modernising without disruption

Financial institutions must connect newer digital and cloud services to core systems that may have been built decades earlier—all while keeping payments, accounts and other critical services running. Modernisation must also support the growing volumes of data needed for real-time analytics, AI and new digital services, alongside regulatory expectations around operational resilience and third-party risk.

Two-thirds of financial services respondents identify legacy technology as one of the top three barriers to maintaining and recovering critical services, compared with just over half across the full survey sample.

Source: Economist Enterprise Technology Resilience Index.

The priorities are closely connected: modernisation cannot happen in isolation. It depends on resilient connectivity, secure access, and visibility across both internal infrastructure and external dependencies.

“Many firms are modernising incrementally,” says Ramesh Prabagaran, vice president of R&D and innovation at AT&T. “Resilient connectivity helps bridge legacy environments with cloud, data and AI initiatives, allowing organisations to innovate without disrupting critical customer services.”

Building a more resilient model

Institutions are testing critical systems, back-up connections and failover plans to identify weaknesses before they disrupt customer services. Security, visibility and continuity need to be built into the network rather than added separately. Integrating these functions can reduce operational complexity while supporting consistent access across branches, users, applications and cloud environments.

Doing so requires expertise across networking, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data integration and vendor oversight. Smaller institutions may rely on shared platforms and external partners, while retaining responsibility for resilience and the customer relationship. Larger ones must maintain consistent performance, security and visibility across thousands of users, devices and locations.

Reliance on outside providers, however, increases the importance of integration and monitoring. Joint guidance from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency says banks should manage third-party risk throughout the relationship, from planning and due diligence to ongoing monitoring and termination.

“What I've seen over the last three or four years is a lot of IT operations teams have adjusted their monitoring or observability toolsets to get more visibility into the aspects of their infrastructure that they don't own,” says Shamus McGillicuddy, vice president of research for network infrastructure and operations at Enterprise Management Associates.

Digital experience management tools extend that visibility to the network edge, showing whether customers and remote employees can access services reliably.

Whether supporting a community bank or a national financial institution, resilience increasingly depends on maintaining secure, reliable access to trusted data and services across operations.

Beyond preventing disruption

Resilience is often viewed as protection against disruption. But infrastructure that keeps data, applications and services connected can also give financial institutions greater confidence to introduce new services and compete for customers.

“The institution that can execute a real-time credit decision, settle a trade or authorise a payment quickly and reliably is better positioned to strengthen the customer relationship,” says Mr Drygas.

AI will raise the stakes further as institutions use real-time data to support fraud detection, customer service, risk management and autonomous workflows.

“The firms that succeed with AI won’t simply have better models,” Mr Prabagaran points out. “They will be the ones that can move trusted data securely and reliably across the organisation, enabling those systems to deliver value wherever decisions are being made.”

Not every AI application depends on real-time information. But those supporting time-sensitive decisions become less useful when data is delayed, incomplete or unavailable.

Customers may never know where a disruption begins. What matters to them is whether services remain available, responsive and trustworthy. As financial institutions modernise and adopt AI, resilient technology, greater visibility and secure data movement can help them adapt to disruption, introduce new services with confidence and compete more effectively.