RFID: A Beacon of Light in the Banking System
Although RFID won't fix the mortgage problem, banks are investing in the technology to improve other business practices—a move they believe will pay off in dollars and sense.
By Elizabeth Wasserman
Feb. 1, 2009—These could hardly be worse economic times for the financial services industry. The mortgage problem snowballed last year into a global banking crisis, leading to bank failures, forced sales, government bailouts and plunges in the market cap of many of the industry's biggest players. But while the fiscal meltdown has forced the industry to slash staff and expenses, several banking giants—including Bank of America and Wells Fargo—are actually upping their investments in RFID technology.
A number of financial institutions have started tagging and tracking assets—from laptop computers to data backup tapes—to automate inventories, improve visibility of equipment that's checked out or moved between facilities, and prevent theft and loss. In the United States, RFID vendors say the biggest driver for the financial services industry to adopt RFID has been to ease compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to strengthen corporate governance. Another important driver in the United States, as well as in Europe, is the pressing need to better protect sensitive customer data.
"RFID automatically gives us the ability to track assets or any item that we want to have visibility into, without requiring human intervention to update databases, systems or records in our asset environments," says Mike Russo, senior VP of automated identification technologies for Wells Fargo, which is in the midst of deploying an RFID asset-tracking system at its five primary data centers nationwide.
Feb. 1, 2009—These could hardly be worse economic times for the financial services industry. The mortgage problem snowballed last year into a global banking crisis, leading to bank failures, forced sales, government bailouts and plunges in the market cap of many of the industry's biggest players. But while the fiscal meltdown has forced the industry to slash staff and expenses, several banking giants—including Bank of America and Wells Fargo—are actually upping their investments in RFID technology.
A number of financial institutions have started tagging and tracking assets—from laptop computers to data backup tapes—to automate inventories, improve visibility of equipment that's checked out or moved between facilities, and prevent theft and loss. In the United States, RFID vendors say the biggest driver for the financial services industry to adopt RFID has been to ease compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to strengthen corporate governance. Another important driver in the United States, as well as in Europe, is the pressing need to better protect sensitive customer data.
|
"RFID automatically gives us the ability to track assets or any item that we want to have visibility into, without requiring human intervention to update databases, systems or records in our asset environments," says Mike Russo, senior VP of automated identification technologies for Wells Fargo, which is in the midst of deploying an RFID asset-tracking system at its five primary data centers nationwide.
To continue reading this article, please log in or choose a purchase option.
Option 1: Become a Premium Member.
| One-year subscription, unlimited access to Premium Content: $189 |
Option 2: Purchase this article.
| Pages: 8 | Word Count: 2,997 | Purchase Price: $19.99 |
