Why Financial Services Companies That Value Agility & Security Pick Teleport

2022 feels a little different, doesn’t it? Every day I’m prepared to hear something new, something scary, or something exciting. These last couple of years have made it seem like we just never know what is coming next. It’s no different for financial services companies who have to be prepared for the unexpected, including disruptive technologies that can challenge their core businesses. McKinsey recently pointed out seven innovations driving the financial services industry such as AI, blockchain, and open-source software and SaaS which have the advantage of lowering barriers to entry for fintech startups competing with the established players.

I am watching all this play out in real time as an account executive at Teleport. When a financial services company offers a new product or service to their customers, teams of developers and operations experts need access to computing infrastructure like servers, databases, Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD environments, and internal dashboards to make it all work. Because of the nature of the data in these environments, security is always top of mind. The cost of data breach in financial services is…well, you already know, expensive. But security isn’t the only thing the financial services companies I talk to care about. They also care about speed.

Just look at the crypto exchange industry as a microcosm of the broader Fintech space. Regardless of how you feel about crypto currencies, these exchanges generated $15B in revenue in 2021. This is a very dynamic market where bringing new functionality to users can’t take years as was often the case with traditional financial services. Agility is key. But with the increased scrutiny of regulators, these exchanges are also ensuring that they take the utmost care with their customers’ data so they can not only assure potential customers that their digital assets are safe, but to also fend off increased regulatory scrutiny. That combination of agility & security is why three of the top five crypto exchanges use Teleport to protect their computing infrastructure.

But what about the big banks? The insurance providers? The hedge funds? And other “traditional” financial services organizations? Are they going to let these upstart fintech companies own the next phase of financial market growth? Of course not. They are launching their own next-generation financial services. Maybe an investor is curious about crypto, but is more comfortable with having it managed by Citi or State Street, both of which have recently announced plans in the crypto currency market. To take these markets head on, the large financial services companies are building tiger teams to bring solutions to market years earlier than they would have in the past. They are prioritizing new agile development methodologies and using open-source software that lets them accelerate decades of R&D into months. But the cost of failure is high. Protecting the PII and financial data of their customers across geographies and staying PCI compliant means that they need to move as securely as they do fast. This is why leading financial services institutions like NASDAQ, Moody’s, and Goldman Sachs trust Teleport.

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What does Teleport do for these customers? Our platform, the open-source Teleport Access Platform, consolidates the four essential infrastructure access capabilities every security-conscious organization needs: connectivity, authentication, authorization, and audit. By consolidating all aspects of infrastructure access into a single platform, Teleport reduces attack surface area, cuts operational overhead, easily enforces compliance, and improves productivity. In the process, we replace VPNs, shared credentials, and legacy privileged access management technologies, improving security and engineering productivity. When I speak to customers, I call this passwordless access with no network exposure. They call it magic.

What are you building this year? I’d love to chat about how Teleport can help you move not just more securely, but faster too.