Banks and other financial institutions are the most susceptible to cyber attacks—300 times more susceptible than companies in other industries, to be precise. In fact, 19% of last year’s attacks were on financial institutions.
Community banks are especially at risk for attacks, partly because they feel that they are not large enough to be targeted. But cybercriminals know that, too, and they know that they can encounter weaker defenses in a community bank than in a national one.
Proper security starts with hosting. Many banks think that their only hosting options are the cloud or on-site servers, both of which come with their own security risks and high associated costs.
However, data centers are an affordable and secure option, easily available to community banks in Iowa through Heartland Technology Data Center.
Want to know how data centers can fuel your community bank’s growth and ensure its security?
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What does data center hosting bring to the table for community banks in Iowa? Why should they make the switch and how can they do it?
Let’s find out!
Top Benefits of Moving Your Community Bank Hosting to a Data Center
Many community bank managers think that data centers are expensive and out of reach for their budget. In fact, the first benefit of moving to a data center is that it can help you:
1. Save Money
Data center infrastructure is expensive, which makes it impossible for community banks to build their own from scratch. This is where colocation comes into play.
By moving your hosting to a data center, you benefit from state-of-the-art infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of purchasing it yourself. Even more, you don’t have to worry about costly maintenance services or the security of the site itself—both of which can dry your budget pretty fast—it’s all included in the cost of the rack space.
Another cost-related advantage is the flexible cost structure. If your company is growing, your infrastructure can grow along with you. If you are downsizing, you won’t have to pay for racks you don’t need. Plus, pricing is predictable, consistent, and transparent unlike with many cloud providers.
2. Get Better Speeds
Do you know what happens when your hosting is in the cloud or somewhere very far away from your physical location? And your data doesn’t move across the network fast enough? Frustration! Slow network speeds impact everyone at your institution, both internal and external.
Tellers have to wait for the data to load while customers are twiddling their thumbs on the other side of the computer monitor. Relocating to a regional data center offers faster loading and faster access to data. In other words, it eliminates frustration for both bank tellers and customers.
3. Improve Disaster Recovery Plans
Better speeds and money-saving are both excellent reasons to switch to a better hosting alternative. But banks need wise data center deployment for another reason, too: manmade and natural disasters.
Following the 9/11 events and Hurricane Sandy, a lot of banks chose to relocate to places that are safer from disasters. While it’s true that we can’t predict where the next devastating storm will hit, we can take precautionary measures to ensure that downtime is minimized if it happens.
Regional banks with a risk-conscious mindset opt for data centers that hire specialists and IT architects who are aware of these threats and know how to strategically deploy data centers.
At Heartland Technology Data Center, we can help you meet your disaster recovery plan requirements to ensure your downtime will be minimal, if any. Our capabilities in this area were tested during the 2020 derecho, so we understand how important preparedness is.
4. Better Security and Compliance
Back in 2017, New York State implemented what was a national premiere at the time: it required companies in the financial industry to make customer data protection a top priority and design risk-based data management platforms. Such regulations are increasingly present throughout the country.
Most of them require financial institutions to perform ongoing risk assessments to ensure that the data they collect is securely stored and analyzed. However, such assessments require access to secure data storage.
This spells data centers. Besides helping community banks to collect real-time data related to their security, data centers themselves are secure hosting options.
Data centers like Heartland Technology Data Center (a Tier III data center with SOC 2 certification) employ top security experts and perform regular assessments and updates to make sure that their defenses can mitigate any risk. With new cybersecurity threats appearing every day and with attacks growing in number and strength by the minute, financial institutions need your security in the hands of experts.
How Can You Move Your Hosting to an Iowa Data Center?
Making the switch to a future-proof, secure, and affordable hosting option is much easier today than it used to be even a few years ago. Our team is ready to help you make this transition as seamless as possible.
We know that a lot of community banks in Iowa are under contract with their networking providers. While this may sound like a big hurdle, we can help you negotiate and get better service at a better price. Request a tour of our facility or talk to our experts!