Industry: Banking and Finance
For most organizations in the banking and finance industry, being able to exchange files securely and efficiently with customers is top priority. The information handled is sensitive: money transfers, check deposits, balance statements, invoices, loan notes, and appraisals all need to be protected and kept compliant with local and federal regulations.
The Bank of Tennessee is no different. Located in northeastern TN, the Bank of Tennessee exchanges a high volume of file transfers with their customers across 22 locations. To protect customer data, they chose a managed file transfer solution—GoAnywhere MFT from Fortra—and use it to secure their file transfers, encrypt data in transit and at rest, and automate their processes to simplify the delivery of information and setup of bank users.
From an In-House Solution to Managed File Transfer
Originally, the Bank of Tennessee exchanged data with customers using a site they’d built internally. This site acted as a collaboration portal between authorized users and the bank, allowed the easy exchange of files with customers (e.g., receipts or balance statements) and loan officers (e.g., financial and tax information documents), and was hosted on Hosting.com.
When the programmer who had built and managed their internal web service left the organization, Joe Haynie, Senior Technology Officer at the Bank of Tennessee, took the opportunity to find a replacement for their in-house application. The replacement needed to be reliable, support stronger security features, and have up-to-date functionality, as well as work on-premises.
During the evaluation stage, Haynie learned GoAnywhere worked with secure sites and would be able to replace their web-facing customer collaboration needs. Upon talking with GoAnywhere’s support team, he knew GoAnywhere MFT would be a good fit for the bank and its customers.
Going Above and Beyond with MFT
Haynie and his team were happy with GoAnywhere MFT immediately. "Installation was simple," he said. "Easy learning curve. From a support perspective, they are very responsive and willing to help with whatever questions we have."
Product training was also useful. "Once we had the initial training and saw how to use it," he explained, "we didn’t have to go back and retrain anything."
Outside of ease of use, Haynie discovered many useful MFT features in GoAnywhere, including:
Compliance & Reporting
The Bank of Tennessee uses their collaboration site to exchange non-public information with customers and vendors. Because of the sensitive nature of this data, Haynie and his team have utilized GoAnywhere’s reporting functionality to perform a self-audit of the site. "[GoAnywhere’s reporting] helped us walk through the steps of locking the site down and making it more secure," Haynie said.
While the Bank of Tennessee isn’t regulated for PCI DSS (they don’t process credit card information in-house), GoAnywhere’s Advanced Reporting module and PCI DSS Security Audit report have still come in handy to help the bank ensure it’s meeting the highest security requirements for file transfers.
Simplified User Setup
User setup for the customer collaboration site also became easier with GoAnywhere. "The old setup we did for users was tedious," Haynie said, which included adding web users and getting them their login information quickly so they could sign on. "Sometimes you had to go in behind the scenes and update the database," he added.
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But with GoAnywhere in place, the setup process improved. "It’s more seamless, more efficient, more automated," he said. "There are more options for the customer, too." For example, if the customer wanted to self-service their passwords, GoAnywhere could allow that.
Even more exciting is the fact that GoAnywhere has reduced the time it takes to set up an account. "It takes a couple minutes now," he said. "It used to take hours before."
Triggers
GoAnywhere’s triggers have also been a helpful addition to the Bank of Tennessee’s file transfer processes. "I like the triggers the best," Haynie said. "When a customer uploads a file or there’s a file ready for a customer to be downloaded, they can be notified automatically." This streamlines the communication between the bank and its customers and reduces the amount of manual bank alerting necessary to keep customers up-to-date on the status of their files and documents.
Alerts & Notifications
For GoAnywhere admins, alerts have helped them track when user logins are invalid. It shows them who the user was and where the faulty login originated from. "That satisfies a security aspect from a monitoring standpoint," Haynie said. "We have annual security assessments and penetration testing from outside firms," he explained. But they’ve never found anything related to how they manage and exchange files. GoAnywhere MFT has always come through.
The features and benefits don’t stop there. Haynie’s team also uses GoAnywhere Gateway, a reverse proxy solution for extra security, and Secure Folders in their organization, and they’re currently working on introducing Secure Mail, an ad-hoc file transfer feature for email, to their environment.
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Achieving Efficiency for Critical Banking Projects
Haynie and his team utilize GoAnywhere for day-to-day operations as well as two new critical projects.
The first project introduced 16 interactive teller machines (ITMs) to certain Bank of Tennessee locations. Customers can choose to use these machines as ATMs or ITMs. When they complete a transaction, the machine collects it and sends it and other transactions to a server to process into a backend system.
"We wrote an Oracle script to look at the posting files," Haynie said. "GoAnywhere then picks those files up from a shared location and sends them to us so we know we can audit." Because ITM transactions are automated, the text file GoAnywhere delivers helps Haynie’s team ensure that the customer transactions aren’t getting dropped. This process with GoAnywhere also reduces the amount of time Haynie’s team must spend checking the server for transactions. They simply get an attachment (showing what files/transactions were sent at what time) in their email.
The second project focused on their remote deposit capture system. At the Bank of Tennessee, business customers can scan checks in remotely, but some checks have an amount limit. If a check surpasses this limit, the deposit must be approved. Unfortunately, there’s no function in the bank’s remote deposit capture software that can notify the bank of a deposit waiting for approval.
Until GoAnywhere came into the picture, deposit approvals were manual. Backroom processors would check the system every so often, then email Relationship Managers (RMs) with holds to verify that the check was theirs and that they wanted it processed. To reduce the time spent approving deposits, Haynie’s team wrote a script that reviews the remote deposit capture software for approval requests. If any are found in the queue, GoAnywhere picks up the text file and emails it to Haynie’s team, alerting them on which checks need approval.
MFT: A Success Story
Overall, Haynie and his team are pleased that their processes are more seamless, efficient, and automated. "There hasn’t really been anything that isn’t easy to use," Haynie said. "GoAnywhere MFT has been a good fit for us."
When asked about GoAnywhere’s features, Haynie was positive about their functionality and use. "If you buy the modules [they offer]," he said, "you can automate about anything you can think of!"
You can learn more about the Bank of Tennessee by visiting their website.
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