A healthy financial services sector allows millions to secure mortgages, credit cards, automobile loans, and other necessities. It also empowers businesses to grow and employ more people, ensuring everyone has the opportunity to achieve their financial goals and needs.
As the industry continues to grow and evolve, it is crucial for companies and professionals alike to understand the role that they play within their ecosystem. With new tools appearing seemingly every day, many financial services companies offer extensive on-the-job training to provide the knowledge needed to succeed in a fast-paced and highly competitive environment.
Financial services include deposit-taking, lending of all types (including financial leasing), investment products and advisory services, insurance, trust and agency services, and all forms of financial or market intermediation. These organizations often deal with sensitive information, such as personal and business credit, and must invest in leading edge solutions to ensure the safety of their data and customers.
Regardless of their size, these companies must constantly monitor and upgrade their technical infrastructure to remain one step ahead of cyber attackers. This is an expensive and never-ending endeavor, but it is vital to the success of their customers and investors alike. In addition to proactive monitoring, financial institutions must invest in business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) solutions to ensure that they can continue operating even after a major natural or man-made event. This is another area where the financial services industry has a strong advantage with their unique set of skills and abilities.