Anyone setting up in business will know that financial considerations are amongst the most important that you need to plan and prepare for. As is true for any individual, you will need to protect your details and ensure that you take all reasonable steps to ensure that you are not at risk of your financial data being compromised. However, when you are also handling financial data from your customers, you have a responsibility to protect all their data from potential threats , but their financial details are probably those most likely to be at risk.

Online transactions

The advent of internet shopping means that it is easier to process payments at a distance than ever before, but this does come with an element of risk. Not only is the data sent across a connection which should be as secure as possible, but the business owner may need to store that data in order to process the transaction. It is the responsibility of anyone collecting data in this way to ensure that it is safe. Although many businesses see this as an IT issue, it is important to ensure that everyone on the workforce is committed to upholding high standards of safety and security. Data Loss Prevention technology can help you monitor the use and sharing of sensitive information to identify situations in which an employee might accidentally or deliberately provide the means for a third party to access data that should not be shared.

Record keeping

It is also important for businesses to keep records for their own accounting purposes so that they can complete their tax returns, send details of their income and expenditure to Companies House if they are a limited company and to keep track of how successful their business is. Most businesses consider this sort of information incredibly sensitive, with the ramifications should a competitor gain access to the details of their financial statements, cash flow or margins. For more details on the kind of information that you might want to protect, this site provides information about the sort of data that you might be collecting on your business that you will need to keep as safe and secure as possible.

Ask the experts

If you aren’t in the business of data management and you don’t have an in-house expert who can help you prevent data loss or minimise the risks to you and your customers, then outsourcing your financial security is often the best and safest way to operate. Security firms will be able to assess your level of risk, advise you as to the kind of systems you may need in place to ensure that you are protected and highlight aspects of your processes that you might not even have realised were potentially compromising your ability to keep your data safe.

Companies like this one that provide a service which will allow you to store your data securely will enable you to identify potential threats, ascertain whether or not you could benefit from increased security and provide solutions to your data protection needs. A company that conforms to ISO standards will be able to ensure their standards are high enough to meet your needs, and being able to provide details of the services you use will make your business more appealing to customers who value the reassurance that you take their security seriously.

Financial data

The Financial Conduct Authority is responsible for regulating the work of businesses in the financial sector, for whom there is additional legislation to ensure that they are taking their customers’ financial security seriously. Guidelines on how they operate and the criteria they use to ensure that a business is acting according to best practice can be found here.  They are also responsible for enforcement of certain standards of consumer protection and have powers of enforcement that allow them to take action against firms which fail to comply with their standards.