The importance of the Fax in the Financial Sector
Although it seemed that the fax was going to disappear forever due to the new ways of sending documents, there are still many companies and industries that continue to use it. More and more companies are realizing its usefulness and benefits and are returning to using it for sending important documentation.
For some sectors, such as finance, the use of the fax is not an option but a duty, due to the handling of sensitive and confidential information and the seriousness that certain transactions require from their clients.
But, thanks to technological advances, the traditional fax used by this sector has evolved into a virtual fax solution that is easier to use, efficient, less expensive, and capable of integrating with companies’ unified communication and e-messaging tools.
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Here’s why businesses keep sending faxes and the benefits of using virtual fax solutions for financial institutions.
Why does the financial sector still use the fax?
Fax is as important to businesses today as it was years ago. But why does the financial sector still use the fax when there are other alternatives to send documentation through the Internet? In short, because of the trust and security, it offers, while ensuring regulatory compliance. In a highly regulated industry, where highly sensitive data and information are handled every day, maintaining security, confidentiality and compliance is essential, and therefore fax plays a critical role in document delivery in this industry.
However, the traditional fax is expensive and inefficient, so technology had to advance to adapt to today’s ways of working and needs. It is for this reason that virtual fax solutions have emerged, which allow you to send and receive faxes from anywhere in the world with a device with internet access.
After all, the fax allows financial institutions to send documents with legal validity, unlike most emails, in addition to confirming whether the document was received or not. If we add to these benefits that we provide virtual fax, we find ourselves with an even more reliable, traceable, and, most importantly, secure service.
5 benefits that the virtual fax brings to the financial sector
1. Regulatory Compliance
Regulatory compliance has been and will continue to be vital to the financial industry. With regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act and the Consumer Protection Act, PCI-DSS, and GDPR already in place, businesses cannot afford to break these regulations and risk the problems that come with them, including heavy fines, and property damage, reputation, or loss of customers.
Some more complete virtual fax solutions allow financial institutions to send encrypted documents throughout the process of sending, transmitting, and receiving. In addition, only the authorized recipient can see them, reducing the risk of others viewing sensitive data and complying with international data protection regulations.
2. Legality
An important benefit that virtual fax has over email is that it is a legally valid document. Most emails are not admissible in court as they are vulnerable to fraudulent activity, interception, tampering, and hacking. In this way, with virtual fax solutions, it is possible to receive proof that the documents have been received.
3. Security
The financial sector is one of those with the highest security requirements. People trust organizations with their money and expect the highest levels of security. However, the lack of knowledge about cybersecurity and data privacy of their employees or the use of less secure solutions makes sectors such as finance more vulnerable than others to phishing attacks or fraud.
Complete virtual fax solutions allow documents to be sent in compliance with the cloud’s highest security and encryption standards, encrypting before sending, processing, and transfer.
4. Improve customer experience and agent productivity
Customer service is essential in all companies, but especially in financial institutions and banks. Customers, when dealing with their bank, want their problems or queries to be resolved professionally and quickly.
With virtual fax solutions, financial institutions can send confidential and sensitive documentation about account and card data or send and receive signed contracts, and even close sales faster from anywhere. This allows improving the customer experience and productivity, by allowing processes to be managed in a more efficient and secure way.
5. Save costs
Traditional fax machines posed a high maintenance cost for machines and servers and a risk that confidential documents could be accessed by an outsider while they were waiting in the machine to be picked up.
Current virtual fax solutions are flexible and scalable, being able to increase or decrease their use at any time. In addition, the costs derived from telephone lines, hardware, or maintenance fees are avoided.
As we have seen, virtual fax solutions bring numerous benefits to the financial sector. Obtaining a complete solution such as eComFax that allows the sending and receiving of documents, faxes, and SMS from anywhere with an Internet connection is essential to ensure regulatory compliance, maintain data security and privacy and save costs, in a sector so highly regulated as the financial.
Find out how eComFax can help financial institutions by clicking here.
