Citrix DaaS use case guide for financial services

The future of IT security and hybrid work in financial services

Security without compromise

In the financial services and banking worlds, IT leaders no longer need to sacrifice security in the name of productivity or flexibility. See how smart IT will power the next evolution of hybrid and remote work.

Let’s start with the obvious: Hybrid work is here to stay. In a global survey of IT leaders recently conducted by Fieldwork for Citrix and Pulse, 100% of respondents said their organizations planned to continue to implement hybrid work models for the foreseeable future. 

Despite this, IT teams in the finance arena are not always provided with the tools and systems they need to ensure enterprise flexibility and security. As opportunities multiply for cross-collaboration between teams and external partners, so too do organizational challenges that involve security and systems integration. Finance and banking IT leaders understand that this new world requires them to work more efficiently, and at the same time, maintain secure systems and platforms for distributed teams.

Yet IT veterans recognize the contradiction at the heart of this. Historically, choosing flexibility meant compromising security. Increasing security, on the other hand, often created a tedious, disjointed experience for the financial services or bank end user. (Picture more than a handful of passwords scrawled in users’ notebooks and the risk level that creates.) Innovative tech solutions can help unleash an organization's true potential, but that only happens when organizations actually implement those solutions.

When innovative tech solutions are put in place, IT leaders are free to approach the proposition of maintaining security and delivering a quality end-user experience as “both/and" -- rather than as “either/or.” Accepting compromise is a thing of the past. Here's how forward-thinking IT leaders keep it there.

Security vs. employee experience? You can have both.

In the past, IT teams needed to balance two things: maintaining network security and providing financial services and banking employees with the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. The simple solution was that everyone sat behind the firewall; and assuming that VPN technology would provide an effective solution for remote employees. Today requires a different approach.

By implementing unified zero trust network access (ZTNA), it's possible to protect all users, apps, and data without creating silos or disruption. Deploying proper contextual access policies allows management to scale business propositions while still meeting today’s toughest security standards in banking and finance, all without compromising employee productivity.

Furthermore, ZTNA can deliver adaptive access to corporate financial services apps and protect against threats. A secure hybrid work environment in banking also supports bring your own (BYO) and unmanaged devices, and provides access to IT-sanctioned apps, without inviting undue risk. ZTNA also grants secure access to IT-sanctioned apps and enhances security with adaptive authentication and single sign-on (SSO).

The solution

Citrix Secure Private Access uses ZTNA to help finance businesses scale and still meet today’s modern security standards, without compromising the employee experience. Features include adaptive authentication and SSO to IT-sanctioned applications, helping prevent unauthorized access and threats from unmanaged and BYO devices.

40%
of all remote access usage that will be served predominantly by ZTNA by 2024, up from less than 5% at the end of 2020

Source

Financial services use case: brokerages

A paramount concern for this heavily regulated industry is balancing the need for security with ensuring a quality employee experience. For example, one brokerage house may offer VPN, which provides adequate but simplistic security. However, frequently this strategy results in a slow and painful user experience. A second firm might rely on remote access to enabled apps via SSO only. This can present security vulnerabilities.

The no compromise solution

Tapping into IT and tech solutions that protect data is the solution of choice. With DaaS, for example, companies, employees, and contractors get more choice and flexibility in their workstreams and maintain a stringent security posture, regardless of where work is taking place.

VPN-less access with Citrix has added a great deal of value in making the employee experience better and our environment much more secure.

Gilliard Delmiro
Co-founder and CTO
HDI

Conclusion

Enabling a secure, productive financial services workforce

When it comes to ensuring security while delivering the highest-quality employee experience possible, the choice is clear: There’s no need to choose. Gone are the days when a company’s IT team was forced to compromise between flexibility and efficiency, or security and employee experience.

Solutions such as ZTNA, DaaS, and VDI can help organizations deploy secure solutions that set employees up for success. These assets and systems allow workers to thrive in hybrid work situations while also empowering cross-team as well as intra- and inter-organization collaboration. And by avoiding contracts tied to single providers, the solutions can scale up and down efficiency on an as-needed basis — saving time, effort, and money.

Support your flexible workforce fast with secure, easy-to-manage cloud desktops and apps. See how with Citrix DaaS.