Information security is a top concern among the world’s financial institutions; a breach in data, identity theft, or fraudulent charges almost always means a loss of existing customers. Financial institutions possess large amounts of incredibly sensitive data on the identity of individuals. This is why customers expect the utmost in security considerations when they decide to take their business to a new bank. In fact, a study conducted at Carnegie Mellon concluded that, compared to other sectors, customers were much more likely to leave a bank after experiencing a case of identity theft or fraudulent charges. The customers typically left within 6 months. In this article we’ll discuss why financial institutions need to practice safe document destruction and security practices.
Reasons to Destroy Financial Records
There are a number of reasons to destroy financial records. Here are just a few sobering statistics regarding financial services data breaches:
- 42% of financial services (firms, banks etc.) have experienced a data breach in one form of another. The rise of data breaches rose from 19% to 24% from 2016-2017.
- Almost one quarter of all data breaches involve financial institutions.
- Due to the highly sensitive nature and usefulness of financial data, the average financial services institution experiences more than 65% more attacks than any other industry.
- In 2018, almost 90% of all financial information technology professionals working in the industry said their particular industry was vulnerable to data attacks and threats.
- In the first half of 2017, financial institutions experienced a 389% increase in the number of records stolen (paper and digital).
- Almost all financial institutions said they were going to increase their time, security, and spending in data security and cyber security in 2018.
- Nearly half of the cyber-attacks on the financial industry come from people working inside the industry.
- Approximately 200 million paper records were stolen last year, according to IBM security.
- Due to these data breaches, financial services lost 3% of their customers, saw a 2% decrease in stock values, and took nearly 3 months to recover financially.
Outsource Your Shredding for Your Financial Institution
While all the statistics listed above are grim, one stands out to us: more than 50% of data breaches and data theft occur from inside the company. This means that confidential records and paper information have been stolen by internal employees. By outsourcing your paper and hard drive shredding to security professionals at Shred With Us, you can guarantee the complete security of your financial clients.
Outsourcing your shredding duties is a good idea. Employee negligence is a real thing; sometimes employees do not understand the importance of proper document destruction. Thieves regularly go through trash bins, searching for documents that contain private information. This private information is then sold to other criminals via the internet, inherently hurting the customer and 
damaging the reputation of the financial institution.
The success of financial institutions is directly correlated with the perceived safety of doing business with them. Reputation and integrity are everything when it comes to business, and a breach in security can mean the difference between a happy client base and customers choosing to move to another financial firm. Financial credentials, Social Security information, credit card track data, and identity are just a few of the highly sensitive pieces of data that financial institutions deal with on a regular basis.
Mobile Shredding in Georgia
We provide on-site and off-site mobile shredding to financial institutions, government entities, educational institutions, and many others in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. If you have experienced a financial data breach due to employee negligence or theft, it pays to hire trustworthy security professionals. We’ve worked with insitutions that value our honesty, such as the United States’ Department of Defense and the United States Secret Service.
