Financial Printing in NYC: Are You Risking Your Clients’ Privacy?

As a financial services provider, your clients are placing a lot of trust in you. You’re not only managing their money, but you have access to their financial accounts and personal information. Certainly, you have established a secure digital environment that keeps your clients’ data secure. But what about financial printing? Are printed financial statements putting your clients, and your business, at risk?

The risks associated with financial printing

Even in the digital age, many clients still prefer that you mail them a monthly statement. That means you need to physically print those statements. How are you managing that financial printing task?

In house printing

If you are doing it yourself in-house, how are you keeping those printed pages secure? There are so many ways that security can be compromised. All it takes is for someone to get interrupted while printing statements and your clients’ financial documents can get left unattended on a shared printer. Or, someone neglects to pick up a statement they printed and it winds up in the trash without being shredded.

If your clients’ financial or personal information gets into the wrong hands, there can be disastrous consequences. Accounts can be hacked and identities can be stolen. If it’s ever happened to you or someone you know, you realize that identity theft is at best a major inconvenience and can result in financial losses.

If it turns out that your lax financial printing practices are to blame, you’re facing lost clients and even a hit to your reputation once the word gets out. Not to mention any fines you may face due to violation of Sarbanes-Oxley security regulations.

Outsourced printing

If you are outsourcing your financial printing to one of the many boutique financial printing services in NYC’s financial district, you still might not be safe.

While these financial printing companies might have state-of-the-art equipment that produces quality documents, and outsourcing is saving you time, your clients’ privacy and security may still be at risk. That’s because there are still people running the machines and handling your mailing pieces, and people can and do make mistakes.

So, what can you do to take control of financial printing security?

2 options to reduce financial printing risk

OPTION 1: Locking down your DIY financial printing

You may be wondering if the solution is to give up the cost benefits of your shared office printers and go back to individual printers in a locked office. Doing that would cost you too much money, and luckily there’s a better way.

Today’s modern printers and software provide you with features that can help you secure your financial printing.

SECURE PRINT: This feature controls the output of documents after a print job is sent to a shared printing device. Everyone who uses the printer gets an access card or code. After sending a print job, they simply enter the code or swipe the card at the printer, and the device outputs their document. When you use secure print, there are no more documents left sitting unattended on the printer that can wind up in the wrong hands.

Learn more: The Office Manager’s Guide to Secure Document Printing

PRINTER HARD DRIVE SECURITY: With some devices, every print job or scan is automatically saved on the printer’s hard drive. With a 5 year lease, that can mean 5 years of data sitting unsecured on your printer! Fortunately Canon equipment has an automatic hard drive erase feature that can take care of this security hole. To further lock down your printed data, SOS offers printer hard drive destruction at the end of your contract.

PRINT AUDITING: Are you monitoring who is printing what in your office? When you make that a regular practice, you may be surprised to find that people are printing all kinds of sensitive information that they shouldn’t. When you use networked printers and the right software, you can easily get audit reports that expose lax security practices and also lots of wasted money.

Learn more: Printer Usage Monitoring: 5 Steps to Take Control of Print Costs.

The good news is, if you already have a modern Canon copier, you may already have the uniFLOW software needed to implement these features and secure your financial printing.

OPTION 2: A truly secure outsourced solution

If you have a sufficient volume of financial printing, you may prefer to outsource the job and save yourself the time and trouble of doing it yourself. Surprisingly, in some cases you can even save money by outsourcing.

The trouble with most financial printing services (as we mentioned above) is the human error factor. Even the most highly regarded company can make a mistake because one person slipped up.

That’s why Pitney Bowes’ Mailstream on Demand printing and mailing service is becoming so popular with financial services companies. With this service, the chance of human error is eliminated, because from start to end your financial printing pieces are never touched by human hands. It’s truly bullet-proof security.

Mailstream on Demand is also simple to use: just upload your documents and mailing lists electronically using a secure site (Amazon Web Services, the most secure system available… it’s used by the IRS). Then Pitney Bowes’ completely automated system takes it from there. Even if a machine jams, everything inside it is automatically shredded and printed again. There are continuous checkpoints and validation processes that ensure accuracy and eliminate mistakes.

For financial firms, there’s even more to gain from using this service:

• You get up-to-the-minute status updates on your mailings through a secure dashboard.
• Pitney Bowes handles everything: they provide the paper, postage and delivery to USPS. They can also deliver documents by email or post on a secure website. They even check your mailing list for deliverability.
• You even get the best price available for outsourcing financial printing (or any printing, for that matter). Even small firms get the lowest postal rates and volume discounts enjoyed by big companies.

Learn more about Mailstream on Demand: 5 Reasons to Outsource Printing and Mailing

How to decide which financial printing option is right for you

Not sure which way to go? Here at Superior Office Systems, we provide printing and mailing equipment, but we also work with the best outsource printing & mailing solution available. That means we have no vested interest in steering you one way or the other… our printing & mailing experts evaluate your specific needs to help you make the best decision for your business.

Want a quick, no-obligation assessment? Take our free quiz to get expert advice about which way to go.