We are here to help financial institutions face the challenge of safeguarding sensitive customer information while proving its authenticity from the high stakes of unauthorized access or tampering to loss of reputation or hefty fines. Your business can face these liabilities all at once or none.
For that purpose, the U.S. Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was created to depict the necessary guidelines for you to follow. The finance sector can be vast, especially when targeting businesses within regulatory areas. GLBA goes into its goal: "To enhance competition in the financial services industry by providing a prudential framework for the affiliation of banks, securities firms, insurance companies, and other financial service providers, and for other purposes."
Knowing the stakes, the safeguards, and the potential consequences made our company think about how Truth Enforcer can assist by providing the power of blockchain technology to identify tampering.
GLBA Safeguards Rule: protect customer information
We can establish that the financial sector is one of the most regulated industries. So, the GLBA, sometimes referred to as the Financial Services Modernization Act, is not a surprise to the industry, but it can be a significant liability if neglected. Even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) worked on it to make amendments demanding risk assessments, encryption, access controls, and ongoing monitoring.
What is the primary goal of this and other similar regulatory efforts? Protect customer information. Unauthorized access or alteration is your biggest issue. For context and perspective, let’s review the three main pillars of GLBA:
Financial Privacy Rule: when you have personal or transactional information from or as a financial institution, then the privacy rule of GLBA applies to you, and it states that “(…) a financial institution may not, directly or through any affiliate, disclose to a nonaffiliated third party any nonpublic personal information (…).”
Safeguards Rule: everything from selecting the proper software to training employees are part of the safeguards rule, and they “(…) establish appropriate standards for the financial institutions subject to their jurisdiction relating to administrative, technical, and physical safeguards (…).”
Pretexting Provisions: your last line of defense should mitigate the risks and prevent liabilities – take measures to detect mischievous practices like data tampering. That is what it means to “(…) prevent the unauthorized disclosure of customer financial information and to deter and detect activities (…).”
These are your building blocks for a compliant and secure financial entity. And you must consider how they might affect your enterprise. Understand the reach and consequences of this Act by looking at the Mortgage Company's $1.5 Million Settlement. The complaint provided by the FTC goes into detail about how they “failed to ensure one of its vendors was adequately securing personal data about tens of thousands of mortgage holders” – enough to breach the Safeguards Rule in GLBA and get such a fine.
Truth Enforcer: verification system
You can have a system where every document has a fingerprint that marks its content state, date, and history. You can see it as a verification system that checks your digital assets.How does this system align with GLBA? Verify authenticity and ensure integrity with proof to back up everything you did when facing internal or external audits.
How does this system align with you? By mitigating costly risks without jeopardizing operational efficiency or having access to your data. It empowers you without adding more liabilities because of the way it uses blockchain technology – where you ultimately control your data.
You get an independent notary who uses blockchain technology to safeguard the content state of your digital assets without accessing it. If that isn’t enough, then the unchangeable audit trail that serves as proof or the verification process taking an instant should put what Truth Enforcer can offer into perspective.
Now, regarding the files that can be in your system. The simple answer is that you can shape the solution to your necessity – it is up to you to decide. In this case, your environment might have all these files:
- Financial statements: balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, etc.
- Regulatory filings: SEC filings, Basel III Reports, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and Know Your Customer (KYC) Records.
- Contracts and agreements: loan agreements, investment contracts, insurance policies, and merger/acquisition documents dictate terms.
- Risk management documents: stress test results, Value-at-Risk (VaR) reports.
- Transaction records: ledgers, trade confirmations, payment histories.
- Tax records: tax returns, filings, supporting documentation.
- Audit and annual reports.
- Client lists, portfolio files, budgets, and forecasts.
Even if they come in different formats, such as .pdf, .xlsx, .csv, .xbrl, .rtf, .qif/.ofx, .xml, .docx, .json, .txt, .html, and many others, we also account for interoperability with Truth Enforcer and have ready to use for SharePoint and Salesforce. If you are looking for process automation and flexibility, our Power Automate Connector can be helpful. Our solution responds to your authenticity concerns and eliminates the fear of dealing with a tampered document.
Authenticity in Finance
Here, we offer a reminder for the financial industry, from the requirements in GLBA to cases like the $1.5 million mortgage company settlement. The cost of oversight can be in dollars but not limited to them; in other words, businesses need to look at compliance as more than a checklist and anticipate potential liabilities and their damage.
That is why we suggest Truth Enforcer as a verification system that can be implemented into your financial operations to give them verifiable authenticity, data governance, and accountability without adding burden. You can enter your workspace with clarity and evidence. Trust will become one of your strongest currencies because authenticity will become your foundation instead of being a liable afterthought.
The tools are here, the rules are clear, and the stakes are high.
We look forward to connecting software with you.
By Francisco Rodrigues, Product Manager
"I write about how software integrations can adapt to business environments and respond to industry-specific demands. I want to show enterprises the road to streamline processes, eliminate bottlenecks, and ensure compliance by empowering teams and C-suite executives with the right tools."