Protecting your Financial Data in Business
Anyone setting up in business will know that financial
considerations are amongst the most important that you need to plan and prepare
for. As is true for any individual, you will need to protect your details and
ensure that you take all reasonable steps to ensure that you are not at risk of
your financial data being compromised. However, when you are also handling
financial data from your customers, you have a responsibility to protect all
their data from potential threats , but their financial details are probably
those most likely to be at risk.
Online transactions
The advent of internet shopping means that it is easier to
process payments at a distance than ever before, but this does come with an
element of risk. Not only is the data sent across a connection which should be
as secure as possible, but the business owner may need to store that data in
order to process the transaction. It is the responsibility of anyone collecting
data in this way to ensure that it is safe. Although many businesses see this
as an IT issue, it is important to ensure that everyone on the workforce is
committed to upholding high standards of safety and security. Data Loss
Prevention technology can help you monitor the use and sharing of sensitive
information to identify situations in which an employee might accidentally or
deliberately provide the means for a third party to access data that should not
be shared.
Record keeping
It is also important for businesses to keep records for
their own accounting purposes so that they can complete their tax returns, send
details of their income and expenditure to Companies House if they are a
limited company and to keep track of how successful their business is. Most
businesses consider this sort of information incredibly sensitive, with the
ramifications should a competitor gain access to the details of their financial
statements, cash flow or margins. For more details on the kind of information
that you might want to protect, this site provides
information about the sort of data that you might be collecting on your
business that you will need to keep as safe and secure as possible.
Ask the experts
If you aren’t in the business of data management and you
don’t have an in-house expert who can help you prevent data loss or minimise
the risks to you and your customers, then outsourcing your financial security
is often the best and safest way to operate. Security firms will be able to
assess your level of risk, advise you as to the kind of systems you may need in
place to ensure that you are protected and highlight aspects of your processes
that you might not even have realised were potentially compromising your
ability to keep your data safe.
Companies like this one
that provide a service which will allow you to store your data securely will
enable you to identify potential threats, ascertain whether or not you could
benefit from increased security and provide solutions to your data protection
needs. A company that conforms to ISO standards will be able to ensure their
standards are high enough to meet your needs, and being able to provide details
of the services you use will make your business more appealing to customers who
value the reassurance that you take their security seriously.
Financial data
The Financial Conduct Authority is responsible for
regulating the work of businesses in the financial sector, for whom there is
additional legislation to ensure that they are taking their customers’
financial security seriously. Guidelines on how they operate and the criteria
they use to ensure that a business is acting according to best practice can be
found here. They are also responsible for enforcement of
certain standards of consumer protection and have powers of enforcement that
allow them to take action against firms which fail to comply with their standards.