The Financial Services Industry is one of the most regulated industries in the world. The very nature of the business requires the industry to comply with strict security requirements. There are numerous regulatory requirements from handling payment card information (PCI-DSS) to how call recordings are labeled and managed (Dodd-Frank Act).
When an organization needs to work remotely, the difficulty in adhering to the requirements is amplified. While operating remotely causes another level of complexity for the organization to protect its customer’s data and comply with regulations, the business must still move forward. Therefore, from the front-office traders to the call center agents that are taking customer service calls, all parts of the organization need to be enabled to operate even when they cannot be physically in the organization’s premises.
In this blog series, we’ll give an example of a business problem caused by operating remotely and then detail out the solutions and strategies for remediation. We will explain how to use AWS to enable an organization to scale from 0 to 100 while enforcing security and compliance at scale. Our goal is to share key guidelines that will allow you to transition seamlessly and quickly while automating steps along the way.
Each solution involves many AWS Services, but there are three that are key:
Amazon WorkSpaces provides the capability to launch virtual Windows and Linux desktops that can be accessed anywhere and from nearly any device. These desktops can be used for remote work, remote training, and more.
Amazon Connect provides the capability to set up a scalable on-demand contact center in the cloud. AWS Connect can be used to build sales development teams, customer service centers, help desk support centers, amongst many other use cases all while the agents are working from home.
AWS VPN provides the capability to set up secure VPN connections to your AWS and on-premises networks from anywhere.
Why these services?
We chose to focus on these three AWS services because they enable an organization to provide resources to a remote workforce while still enforcing security and governance. Now that you are familiar with the AWS Services we will be focusing on in this blog series, let’s next take a look into the solutions we will be sharing.
Core Solutions
Secured Remote Workstations
Organizations need to provide environments for their front middle and back office, development, and operation teams. Amazon Workspaces allows organizations to provision environments for teams in a self-service, near-infinitely scalable, and secure fashion.
Compliant Call Centers
Call Centers require a fully-integrated, automation focused, platform that also adheres to regulatory and compliance standards. This can be accomplished through a combination of Amazon Connect, and a variety of AWS’s services (Transcribe, Transcode, Comprehend, Lex, etc.), along with industry-standard third-party solutions (SalesForce).
Global VPN Scaling
Organizations need to consider how they provide access to their network and when operating at a global scale, additional factors come into play, such as latency and throughput. The AWS VPN service was engineered from the ground up to secure remote network connectivity while instantly scaling your organization’s needs.
Conclusion
By the end of this blog series, you will have an understanding of how you can get started in building a remote environment that is scalable to meet your global needs, but secure enough to meet Financial Services industry standards.
Stay tuned for our next blog in this series as we dive deep into Amazon Workspaces. Learn how you can provide your remote workforce the environment they need to work autonomously while the necessary security and governance controls are applied.
