Skip to content

Budget? What Budget?

by Barbara Hurst, BOL Guru
Guru BIOS

While I was writing the lead story in this newsletter about biometrics, I couldn't help but remember what we had learned at a security conference I worked at recently with an agent from the Department of Homeland Security.

The agent had brought with him a power point presentation and also some actual samples of real and counterfeit documents used by people coming into our country. His demonstration of how easily official documents can be counterfeited was chilling. The uses of computer scans and plastic coating have reached new standards of expertise. Because we were looking for differences in the drivers licenses and visa samples, we were able to see where they had been altered, or created - but in many cases, only because we actually were comparing them to genuine articles of the same kind.

The fact remains that even if the license or visa or matricula consular is genuine - what is to guarantee that the person who presented it to you is the person pictured on the document? New accounts people and tellers have had to deal with this problem for years. How much simpler life would be for bankers if there was some way to absolutely identify someone by a presented document. But we all know there is not.

I think that's why the idea of biometrics appealed to me so much. It seems like an answer to another area of great concern. We worry about natural disasters such as hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, or tornados shutting down an office, or even making the office disappear from the landscape.

Consider, then, how much more concern there would be if your operations area were to be blown off the map. It's true that financial industries have, for years, been required to maintain a back-up site for all data, which is updated daily. But can you imagine what would happen if someone bent on destruction managed to get into your operations center? Security officers, then, have had the concern for some time that although they can put guards on the doors, and require identification, unfortunately that identification can be altered or forged.

We now have available some of the best forms of individual identification in the world. There is, in all probability, only one thing that is keeping the banking industry from employing some of this extra-measure technology. That one thing is the security officer's budget.

During our workshop in September, Dana Turner asked for volunteers to tell us how large their bank was and how large a budget they had to work with. There was a small ripple of laughter. When asked why, one attendee, who is a board appointed security officer said, "We don't have a budget for security purposes." When asked how many others in this room of over 130 security officers from 35 different states had no budgets, over half the room raised their hands!

Making the Board of Directors and administration understand what the dangers are, and what it will take to protect against them will be a big hurdle for the security officer. Once he or she can do that, it will be time to tackle the bigger hurdle - getting a reasonable budget.

Security officers - I wish you luck.

Copyright © 2003 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 13, No. 7, 10/03

First published on 10/01/2003

Filed under: 
Filed under operations as: 

Search Topics