The UK banking system is no longer the UK banking system; it is part of a global pantheon, so to speak. Modern technology has rendered banking and financial services truly global, beyond the globality of wire transfers and mailed cheques. It is not hyperbole to describe modern banking as a supra-real system, being, as it is, a near-fully digital set of interconnected and highly complex systems.
Indeed, the digital nature of modern banking is cause enough for concern amongst many less-trusting banking clients and even employees. Such distrust does not come unwarranted; with a set of interconnected and highly complex digital systems comes the necessity for considerable protections, in the name of operational – and, of course, financial – security.
1) From Monitoring to Intelligence
From first principles, what does this mean? Banking protection is far more than encryption of user data; it is a matter of protecting myriad networks, themselves part of a far larger super-network of sorts. Banking systems, from internal management to client-facing software, are connected in various ways, each of which constitute a weak point for failure, or worse: exploitation. The operative term here Is ‘hybrid estate’.
As with any hybrid estate, the most powerful instrument for maintenance is data. Above and beyond monitoring usage, network intelligence involves the comprehensive gathering and analysis of information through deep telemetry and flow analysis – which point towards understanding usage, tracking processes and ultimately protecting both system and users.
2) Mapping Critical Payments and Core Banking Flows
One of the key ways in which network intelligence can be vital aspect to systems management is through the mapping of critical payments across card rails. This is a matter, partly, of tracking behaviours in order to better streamline key systems and systemic interconnections. It is also, though, a matter of tracking systemic errors. By mapping these payments, and with them, crucial banking flows, it is possible for banking services to prioritise fixes where they matter most.
3) Supporting Operational Resilience
The name of the game here, so to speak, is operational resilience; the supporting of financial-service hybrid estates in the name of regular, repeatable and well-supported performance for clients and critical partners. By utilising network intelligence, it is possible for banking services to detect performance degradation and operate accordingly, before it becomes an outage.
Deep telemetry enables the granular examination of processes and sub-processes, as well as that of user behaviours. As such, it can be vital for anomaly detection – catching routine errors and preventing serious, business-breaking or financially destructive outages. Crucially, and with the right evaluative processes, this can be done in such a fashion as to filter out false positives, and to significantly reduce MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) accordingly.
This is just scratching the surface when it comes to network intelligence and its usefulness in banking contexts. Not only is it crucial for protecting existing and complex interrelated processes, but it is an essential measure for improvement, expansion and more.
See also:
What Accountants Can Do Differently in 2024 | Disruption Banking
GFTN Launches ALFIN: AI Research Engine for Trusted FinTech Intelligence | Disruption Banking
