Why Should My Small Community Bank Outsource IT Network Management? Part I
The Use of Technology in the Community Banking World Has Become Widespread
While its evolution has made many processes and procedures more streamlined and efficient, managing a financial institution’s IT network has also become a full time, demanding responsibility. A community bank’s IT staff must understand the ever-growing complexity of IT operations and applications, continuously changing regulatory requirements and FFIEC compliance guidelines. Even with all these important responsibilities, many community banks only have one or two people to manage all of the IT operations. Even further, many may not have banking backgrounds.
Regardless of location and size, small community banks are subject to largely the same regulations as larger institutions. Regulatory agencies are continuously changing and increasing guidance regarding cybersecurity and are liberal in issuing citations to financial institutions that have lapses or are not meeting regulations.
With these changes, smaller financial institutions are, or should be, looking for ways to more efficiently manage their IT networks and compliance procedures. Oftentimes they determine outsourcing the management of underlying IT, security and compliance operations is the most effective and efficient solution. Smaller financial institutions can benefit in many ways from outsourcing with a provider who offers IT network management solutions exclusively tailored for community banks.
Finding, training and retaining qualified staff to manage an IT network can eat up considerable time and energy from your bank’s management team, taking away valuable time needed to support customers and banking operations. Maintaining the knowledge and expertise of the evolving IT landscape is a time-consuming endeavor and small institutions trying to manage this function internally often find it nearly impossible to remain competitive with their technology in today’s banking environment. Outsourcing underlying IT operations to a knowledgeable banking IT provider eliminates management’s time involvement in recruiting IT personnel, training new IT personnel on the unique technology and compliance aspects of banking, and the on-going issues associated with competitive compensation.
Any time a bank system is down, be it the teller system, WAN circuit, or loan documentation system, it causes a disruption to the financial institution. Such disruptions can be greatly reduced by working with a knowledgeable service provider. The right service provider can monitor and proactively identify many technical issues on network devices, and address or fix the problem prior to failure. This results in less downtime, improved employee efficiency and a consistently high level of customer service.
For more information on how outsourcing can benefit your community bank, please download our complimentary white paper, 7 Reasons Why Small Community Banks Should Outsource IT Network Management.
7 Reasons Why Small Community Banks Should Outsource IT Network Management
This is a free white paper that addresses key issues smaller financial institutions face when managing their networks and the benefits of outsourcing these tasks to a provider who offers IT network management solutions exclusively tailored for community banks.
