Enabling team collaboration in FinServ and FinTech with Rocket.Chat

Financial services are an industry in transition. Digitization touches almost every aspect of business, and the impact of digital technologies will only increase in the upcoming years.

With changes in technology, the very core of finance - like transactions and related processes - is changing. This impacts other areas of business, too. Customers are expecting better digital services, meaning that the way teams collaborate also needs to transform and digitize.

Moreover, organizations in Finance need to take into account industry and region-specific regulations, which sometimes delay or complicate digital transformation initiatives.

So, how can financial institutions and organizations make sure they’re well prepared for their industry’s digital future in the aspect of communication and collaboration? What do they need to take into account and how can Rocket.Chat help them along the way?

FinServ and FinTech today and tomorrow

According to Deloitte, digital transformation will impact finance in the following ways by 2025:

1. Processes will be radically simplified due to further technological advances
2. With automated operations, finance will increase its focus on providing exceptional customer service
3. Data will be analyzed and processed in real-time
4. The use of self-service and smart agents will increase
5. New service delivery models will emerge - external collaborators will become a standard
6. Drastic reduction of technology costs due to the rising number of microservices providers
7. The increased use of API 
8. Employees in FinServ will need to have a strong customer service orientation, flexibility, and good collaboration skills.

In short, the advanced technology will lead to automation and reduction of manual processes, thus turning the focus of FinServ organizations from data processing to added value. This added value will be found in excellent customer service.

For increased customer satisfaction, employees in financial institutions will need to collaborate seamlessly with each other - but also with a rising number of external partners in the form of freelancers, gig workers, and outsourced service providers.

What are some challenges to seamless collaboration in FinServ and FinTech?

How we work has changed. The work-from-home model has now given more weight to digital communication channels like Slack or Zoom. Research shows that 40% of US employees communicate via instant messaging at work, and this number is even higher in the tech industry (71%). 

Unfortunately, research also shows that 53% of remote workers use consumer-oriented messaging apps like WhatsApp for work-related matters. This poses a significant challenge to regulatory compliance in FinServ due to the lack of security safeguards - and the consequences are costly: JPMorgan Chase paid $200 million in fines to two U.S. banking regulators to settle charges that its Wall Street division allowed employees to use WhatsApp and other platforms to circumvent federal record-keeping laws.

Moreover, front office employees also need to be given a quick and effective yet secure way to communicate with their trading partners, clients, and middle and back office.

In short, organizations in highly regulated industries such as FinServ need to find a way to marry these three:

• Digital experience and online collaboration between employees
• Seamless collaboration with external partners
• High data privacy and security standards i.e. regulatory compliance and maintaining ethical walls between departments.

How financial institutions use Rocket.Chat to enable secure team collaboration

Rocket.Chat’s open source messaging solution addresses the aforementioned challenges with the following features:

• Audit panel
• Auditable integration with current systems
• Mobile-friendly interface
• Federation capabilities
• Real-time monitoring by the compliance officer
• Customizable document sharing controls
• Active directory integration
• End-to-end encryption
• On-premise deployment for complete control of your data
• Supports compliance with GDPR 
• Single sign-on.

Here’s what these features enable you to do.

Seamless remote and hybrid work

Financial services were reluctant to enable remote and hybrid work policies in their rows. The data security standards asked for an in-office environment.

However, the world of work is changing, and remote work is the future. FinServ organizations need to incorporate remote work practices to attract the best talent.

Rocket.Chat’s open API ensures integration of other tools with the instant messaging app, thus ensuring seamless workflow. Mobile-friendly interface and white-labeling options are here to increase the productivity and engagement of employees no matter where they work.

Efficient internal and external collaboration

Internal collaboration in the digital environment can be supported with various collaboration apps. Rocket.Chat enables teams to connect via chat and video conferencing. Teams can send files and voice messages and interact via channels, teams, threads, discussions, and direct messages. This ensures that the collaboration is project-oriented and well organized.

As previously mentioned, FinServ organizations will need to collaborate with more and more external partners - such as gig workers, freelancers, and collaborators from outsourced organizations. With Rocket.Chat’s Matrix federation capabilities, external partners can be included in the collaborative network without switching the communication means on their end.

It makes communication and collaboration easy for both parties, not to mention it’s also made secure from a data protection point of view.

Ensuring ethical walls between departments

Financial institutions want to enable better collaboration, but they still need to maintain ethical walls between departments. How can these two seemingly opposite trends be joined for the best collaboration experience?

Digital tools with interoperability functionality enable organizations to set up multiple workspaces that federate each other, enabling only authorized specific personnel to participate in each workplace. Rocket.Chat incorporates this feature, thus supporting this important aspect of data privacy regulations in Finance.

Maintaining the highest level of data security and privacy

Cybersecurity remains a challenge and a priority for CFOs in the upcoming years. Financial institutions need to improve their resilience to cyber-attacks and also make sure to stay compliant with important data privacy regulations in their regions and industry.

Rocket.Chat’s technology supports data security and privacy in several ways. First of all, all communication is end-to-end encrypted. An audit panel, real-time monitoring by the compliance officer, and customizable document sharing controls support secure collaboration practices and prevent unintentional human error.

Secondly, Rocket.Chat can be deployed on-premise, putting organizations in full control of their data. This is often a prerequisite for privacy-conscious organizations that want to have complete data sovereignty.

Digital client communication

Rocket.Chat is a solution that not only supports collaboration between teammates but also with clients. Having all communication in one place makes it easy to solve current customer issues and have customer-centric conversations with internal team members. Our omnichannel capabilities make it easy for clients to reach their financial services providers on a multitude of channels.

Get started with Rocket.Chat for Financial Services

Our open-source collaboration platform helps financial institutions build trusting relationships with their clients. It eliminates operational and compliance risks by making internal and external communications more secure.

Find out more about Rocket.Chat for Financial Services and Get in touch with our team.