Banking & Finance
Audit-ready IT for banks, microfinance institutions and insurers: branches that stay connected, DR that has been tested, and evidence for every control.
What makes this sector hard
- Internal and external auditors aren't satisfied by "we have a firewall". They want to see logs, access reviews and test dates.
- When an incident hits, the first hour matters most. If nobody knows who to call or which system to isolate first, the damage spreads to every branch.
- Many provincial branches and ATM sites have a single fiber provider. The second link has to be a genuinely different medium.
- Phishing and executive-impersonation payment requests target branch staff and finance teams directly.
- A core-banking DR plan that has never been tested is only a document. Auditors will ask when it was last run and what recovery time was actually achieved.
- Vault and server-room CCTV and access logs must be complete and quick to retrieve when requested.
Reference IT design
In a bank, a good design is one you can prove. Every control below comes with the evidence an auditor will ask for.
| Area | What we put in | Evidence it produces |
|---|---|---|
| Branches | Encrypted SD-WAN over two links on different media (fiber + 4G or radio) | Per-link uptime and failover reports |
| Network access | Zero-trust / NAC so only registered devices connect | Logs of rejected devices |
| Identity | MFA on every admin account and on remote access via secure remote access | Sign-in logs and access reviews |
| Perimeter | Next-generation firewalls in HA pairs at the edge and between critical zones | Firewall rule reviews |
| Endpoint and email | EDR everywhere; email security with SPF/DKIM/DMARC | DMARC and EDR incident reports |
| Detection | SOC/SIEM with 24/7 monitoring | Incident records with detection and reporting times |
| Vulnerabilities | Regular vulnerability assessments and staff phishing training | Retest reports and training records |
Data center and DR
- A primary data center and a separate DR site. Where possible, don't let both depend on the same substation or fiber route.
- Virtualization or HCI, with storage replicated to the DR site.
- Immutable backups plus an offline copy. Current ransomware looks for backups and deletes them before it encrypts servers.
- N+1 UPS, precision cooling, temperature and water-leak sensors, and fire suppression.
Test DR end to end: fail over to the DR site and back, and record the recovery time (RTO) and data loss (RPO) you actually measured. A test that "passed" with no measurements won't satisfy an auditor.
Physical security and communications
- High-resolution IP CCTV at counters, vaults, ATMs and entrances, retained per policy. Size NVR storage from the required retention days, not the other way round.
- Two-factor access control (card plus face or fingerprint) for vaults and server rooms, and intrusion alarms linked to a monitoring center.
- IP-PBX and contact center for customer hotlines with call recording; video conferencing between head office and provincial branches.
The order we recommend
Identity first (MFA, admin accounts, access reviews). Then continuity (dual-path links, immutable backup, DR tests). Then detection, plus an incident-response plan with named owners and a clear internal escalation path. Finally, pull the policies and training records together so they're ready for audit.
We provide the technical controls and the documentation behind them; your internal policies set the details, such as video retention and test frequency.
If an audit is coming up, send us the findings from the last one. We'll map each finding to the technical control that closes it.
Send us a floor plan or a few photos of the site
We’ll come back with a few questions, then a first design. The first consultation is free, in Lao, Thai or English, on WhatsApp or our Facebook page.