Ruchin has been working in the IT industry for more than 24 years. He is responsible of establishing channel and partner networks, fortifying ties with significant clients, fostering business expansion, and managing day-to-day operations in the South Asia region. Ruchin is a master's-level computer scientist. He belongs to ISACA and is a practicing CISA and CISM professional.

IoT is changing the way people use financial services. How is IoT transforming the way BFSI delivers superior customer service especially in the area of payments?
o The internet of things (IoT) can potentially transform the way banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) sector delivers customer service, particularly in the area of payments. In India, the adoption of IoT in the BFSI sector holds a great promise for improving the customer experience and tightening the security of financial transactions. Currently, IoT solutions underlie emerging trends like connected payment devices and better security through biometric authentication. They can also be used to inform organizations about the usage and consumption habits of customers.

Innovative applications of IoT bode well for the banking and fintech industry. How do you see IOT enabling the delivery of innovative digital banking and finance solutions that increase efficiency and drive customer satisfaction in the future?
o Banks can deploy solutions to integrate their customers’ wearable IoT devices (like smart watches) with their banking systems. With these solutions, customers can make payments conveniently using their IoT-connected device, eliminating the need for physical cards or cash. This enhances the speed and ease of payments, providing a superior customer experience. Add a biometric authentication solution on top of this, and you have enhanced security as well.

How is IOT enabling banks to prevent fraud even before it happens?
o IoT makes payments more secure by enabling stronger authentication. For instance, biometric data from IoT devices can be used to authenticate customers, reducing their reliance on passwords, PINs, and physical cards, all of which can be appropriated by cyber-criminals. Consider someone using a bio-metric-enabled mobile device to make contactless payments. Also, organizations can deploy monitoring and alerting systems for their IoT devices to detect anomalies or suspicious activity in real-time, helping prevent fraud and protect sensitive data (and funds).

Many IoT in financial services devices are ripe targets for cyber-criminals. What are the security and privacy risks associated with IOT for the BFSI?
o While IoT solutions give BFSI organizations many benefits, they also present new attack surfaces that organizations must protect against cyber-criminals. IoT devices generate and transmit vast amounts of data, including financial and personal information. If the organization has not deployed a robust cryptographic strategy to protect its network of IoT devices, such as encryption and key management, the network might be attacked, resulting in ransomware scenarios or potential data breaches. Considering that many estimate there to be tens of billions of IoT devices in operation in the world, that means there’s quite a lot of data that needs protecting.

What is your advice to financial organizations embracing IoT? How can companies like Futurex help financial organizations embracing IoT in securing sensitive information?

o Embracing IoT adoption offers numerous benefits to financial organizations. It enhances customer experiences and provides valuable user data for informed decision-making, ultimately leading to improved user satisfaction. However, it's crucial to develop a comprehensive data management strategy to handle the massive influx of data from IoT devices.

Embracing IoT adoption enhances customer experiences and provides valuable user data for informed decision-making, ultimately leading to improved user satisfaction.

o In this context, it's essential to emphasize the importance of key management alongside digital certificate issuing, digital signing, and strong encryption. With multiple applications utilizing encryption keys, enterprises may find themselves managing thousands of keys across numerous applications. This complexity can introduce vulnerabilities into the IT infrastructure.

o To address this challenge, deploying a robust hardware-backed key management solution becomes indispensable. Such a solution ensures the secure lifecycle management of encryption keys and their storage in hardware, effectively mitigating vulnerabilities. By implementing this approach, financial organizations can enhance the security of their IoT ecosystem while efficiently managing encryption keys.

o By optimizing these practices, financial organizations can leverage the full potential of IoT, maximize customer experiences, and make data-driven decisions, all while safeguarding their IT infrastructure from emerging vulnerabilities.