4 Security & Compliance Predictions for the Fintech Industry in 2021

Since the shutdown that resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic, we have experienced a rapid rate of change, and we have, in turn, rapidly adapted. In fact, we saw 15 years of behavior change in 30 days. With the mass closing of traditional office spaces, companies across all industries were forced to deal with an entirely digital world – whether they were ready for it or not. This new virtual collaboration space morphed the fundamentals of how businesses traditionally conduct themselves, taking it from between the walls of a conference room to the screen of a computer.

As many companies continue to grapple with the complexities of keeping operations running smoothly, overall security measures and compliance become more critical, especially with more employees working remotely. The increased reliance on modern collaboration tools like video, chat, and voice coupled with a lax approach to security can bring forth challenges that have the potential to upend businesses. In order to avoid issues like regulatory violations, large fines, and security breaches, the financial industry must take a look at its processes related to the increased collaboration tool usage that facilitates work-from-anywhere and ensure its security and compliance is top-notch going into the new year.

Here are my top predictions for what the fintech industry will see in 2021 when it comes to modern collaboration tool security and compliance.

1. Organizations will increase their usage of cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration tools, resulting in more risk and compliance violations. The vast majority of video users will turn on their cameras most or all of the time – leading to video hosts suffering from unintended incidents as their cameras capture controversial background scenes or are disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language. This will result in an increased amount of compliance violations.
2. New collaboration features such as person-to-person payments will make security a headache. Collaboration platforms will add new, dynamic features at a furious pace that will make it more difficult to monitor and configure security options. These platforms and APIs will be built to facilitate new activities, like sending and receiving payments, that will further increase the risky and regulated activities on those platforms – forcing companies to increase the security and compliance of their API and integration features.
3. Collaboration security will be a top priority for the government. Collaboration tools (Zoom, Teams, Webex) are going to get dragged into conversations about privacy law and big tech, further pressuring them to stay on top of security and compliance capabilities. At least two regulatory agencies will make explicit statements about regulatory obligations to retain and supervise collaboration conversations. Additionally, these tools will replace many call center interactions and force organizations on related compliance, privacy, and security risks.
4. Regulators will no longer show compliance-related leniency to the financial services industry. The existing no-action letters allowing for the adjustment to temporary work-from-anywhere environments will lapse, and regulators will expect finance firms to adhere to communication compliance requirements even in a remote workplace that uses collaboration tools. This will exacerbate fines and enforcement actions, which will continue to mount in 2021 for communication supervision failures, likely significantly surpassing 2020 numbers.

The work-from-anywhere in 2021 will become the new normal including more, smaller, and geographically dispersed offices and more hybrid remote workers. The sooner organizations can establish protocols and fail-safes for the usage of video, chat, and voice collaboration tools, the better. Investing in the enhancement of existing technology to meet compliance and regulatory standards will ensure companies remain competitive and viable into the new year and beyond.