By John Astorino, COO, Auvik
Financial institutions are increasingly leveraging advanced IT solutions to enhance their operations, improve customer experiences, and stay competitive. IT teams in financial services face a unique and significant responsibility to protect their clients’ money and investments. Recent research has uncovered a number of trends that stand out for the Financial Services industry and may help inform planning for next year.
For a deeper dive into the leading issues IT teams in financial services face, Auvik recently released its 2024 Financial Services IT Trends Report. The report surveyed 2,000+ IT professionals about current IT trends, and compared the results from professionals working in the financial services industry to the larger sample group. FinServ IT departments often stood apart from – and sometimes above – their peers in other industries. A few key findings:
FinServe IT Departments face greater security threats
With the increasing digitization of financial services, it’s not surprising cybersecurity has become a top priority for financial institutions. In 2023, financial services overtook healthcare as the industry seeing the most targeted cyberattacks—in fact one study found cybercriminals are up to 300 times more likely to target the industry than other institutions. With the rise in cyber threats and data breaches, many organizations are investing heavily in advanced cybersecurity measures.
In the 2024 Financial Services IT Trends Report, more than half of financial services IT professionals cite security and compliance regulations as their top challenges today (53%), followed closely by the shortage of skilled IT professionals (49%), network visibility (48%), and infrastructure and performance (48%).
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are being deployed to detect and mitigate cyber threats in real-time. These technologies can analyze vast amounts of data to identify patterns and anomalies that may indicate a security breach. Additionally, multi-factor authentication (MFA) and biometric verification are becoming standard practices to enhance security and prevent unauthorized access.
Financial services ITs update network documentation more frequently
Financial services IT professionals update network documentation more frequently than the average IT pro. A notable 45% of these IT professionals update their network documentation—both maps and inventory—on a weekly basis. This rate surpasses that of their peers in other industries, where only 36% follow a similar practice. A more detailed approach to documentation can help improve troubleshooting with more accurate network mapping. It can help identify unauthorized changes and discrepancies that may indicate a security breach. Current network documentation also supports compliance, ensuring that network changes are logged and auditable. In this regard, FinServe ITs may be a role model for other industries.
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Financial services are more likely to turn to MSPs to fill gaps
The continuing shortage of skilled IT pros in the workforce has driven financial services IT departments to lean more on managed service providers (MSPs) who partner to protect data while managing network performance for end users. Financial services comprise one of the industries most likely to outsource network-related functions to MSPs at 80%, tied with healthcare (80%) and only behind heavily regulated utilities (87%). The top outsourcing activities for financial services respondents involve network configurations, configuration backups, and troubleshooting.
FinServe IT departments manage fewer network devices
FinServ IT teams bear the responsibility for a smaller number of network devices than their peers. Almost half of finance IT pros utilize just four to 10 network-related tools, compared to their counterparts in other fields who use 10 to 20 tools on average. This discrepancy suggests that finance IT departments tend to consolidate network vendors to maintain a limited, refined toolset to minimize complexity while increasing control over network operations for security and compliance.
Financial service ITs have less visibility into SSO usage for SaaS apps
IT professionals for financial services are more likely to have limited visibility into single sign-on (SSO) usage within SaaS applications compared to their general IT peers, which raises concerns about potential security vulnerabilities and compliance issues. SSO is widely used in corporate environments to simplify user access by reducing the number of passwords they need to remember and manage. It also improves security by centralizing the authentication process to a single provider that manages user credentials, making it easier for IT departments to enforce security policies and monitor access logs. Nearly 53% cited limited visibility and 11% cited zero visibility, compared to 45% and 13, respectively, among all IT respondents.
Limited visibility into whether users are leveraging SSO within their SaaS apps makes it difficult for the IT team to quickly detect breaches or unauthorized access. Employing SaaS monitoring tools that empower an IT team with better visibility into user activities and accounts across the organization may offer a remedy.
Financial services ITs are network innovators
Financial services IT professionals are more inclined to innovate compared to their non-finance counterparts. When asked what network-related activities they would like to be doing more of, finance ITs showed higher interest across the board for the majority of activities. The top five include programming and automation (48%), cybersecurity (47%), configuration and maintenance (46%), training and continuous learning (45%), and strategic business planning (45%).
Are you ready for 2025?
Many of these trends may look familiar to IT pros in financial services. Taking an occasional pause to assess how your organization compares with the wider industry is an important step in preparing for next year.
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