Never make changes to your financial situation without first consulting me. Changes to your financial situation before your mortgage closes could actually cause your mortgage to be declined.

1. Don’t quit your job.

This might sound obvious, but if you quit your job we will have to report this change in employment status to the lender. From there you will be required to support your mortgage application with your new employment details. Even if you have taken on a new job that pays twice as much in the same industry, there still might be a probationary period and the lender might not feel comfortable with proceeding.

If you are thinking of making changes to your employment status… contact me first, it might be alright to proceed, but then again it might just be best to wait until your mortgage closes! Let’s talk it out.

2. Don’t do anything that would reduce your income.

Kinda like point one, don’t change your status at your existing employer. Getting a raise is fine, but dropping from Full Time to Part Time status is not a good idea. The reduced income will change your debt services ratios on your application and you might not qualify.

3. Don’t apply for new credit.

I realize that you are excited to get your new house, especially if this is your first house, however now is not the time to go shopping on credit or take out new credit cards. So if you find yourself at the Brick, shopping for new furniture and they want you to finance your purchase right now… don’t. By applying for new credit and taking out new credit, you can jeopardize your mortgage.

4. Don’t get rid of existing credit.

Okay, in the same way that it’s not a good idea to take on new credit, it’s best not to close any existing credit either. The lender has agreed to lend you the money for a mortgage based on your current financial situation and this includes the strength of your credit profile. Mortgage lenders and insurers have a minimum credit profile required to lend you money, if you close active accounts, you could fall into an unacceptable credit situation.

5. Don’t co-sign for a loan or mortgage for someone else.

You may have the best intentions in the world, but if you co-sign for any type of debt for someone else, you are 100% responsible for the full payments incurred on that loan. This extra debt is added to your expenses and may throw your ratios out of line.

6. Don’t stop paying your bills.

Although this is still good advice for people purchasing homes, it is more often an issue in a refinance situation. If we are just waiting on the proceeds of a refinance in order to consolidate some of your debts, you must continue making your payments as scheduled. If you choose not to make your payments, it will reflect on your credit bureau and it could impact your ability to get your mortgage. Best advice is to continue making all your payments until the refinance has gone through and your balances have been brought to zero.

7. Don’t spend your closing costs.

Typically the lender wants to see you with 1.5% saved up to cover closing costs… this money is used to cover the expense of closing your mortgage, like paying your lawyer for their services. So you might think that because you shouldn’t take out new credit to buy furniture, you can use this money instead. Bad idea. If you don’t pay the lawyer, the closing will be cancelled.

8. Don’t change your real estate purchase contract.

Often times when you are purchasing a property there will be things that show up after the fact on an inspection and you might want to make changes to the contract. Although not a huge deal, it can make a difference for financing. So if financing is complete, it is best practice to check with me before you go and make any changes to the purchase contract.

9. Don’t list your property for sale.

If we have set up a refinance for your property and your goal is to eventually sell it… wait until the funds have been advanced before listing it. Why would a lender want to lend you money on a mortgage when you are clearly going to sell it right away (even if we arranged a short term).

10. Don’t accept unsolicited mortgage advice from unlicensed or unqualified individuals.

Although this point is least likely to impact the approval of your mortgage status, it is frustrating when people who don’t have the first clue about your unique situation give you unsolicited advice about what you should do with your mortgage, making you second guess yourself.

Now, if you have any questions at all, I am more than happy to discuss them with you. I am a mortgage professional and I help clients finance properties everyday, I know the unique in’s and out’s, do’s and don’ts of mortgages. Placing a lot of value on unsolicited mortgage advice from a non-licensed person doesn’t make a lot of sense and might lead you to make some of the mistakes as listed in the 9 previous points!

So in summary, the only thing you should do while you are waiting for the advance of your mortgage funds is to continue living your life like you have been living it! Keep going to work and paying your bills on time!

Now… what about after your mortgage has funded?

You are now free to do whatever you like! Go ahead… quit your job, go to part time status, apply for new credit to buy a couch and 78″ TV, close your credit cards, co-sign for a mortgage, sell your place, or soak in as much unsolicited advice as you want! It’s up to you!

But just make sure your mortgage has funded first.

Also it is good to note, if you do quit your job, make sure you have enough cash on hand to continue making your mortgage payments!

Obviously, if you have any questions, I would love to answer them for you.

Feel free to contact me anytime!

How long would it take for you to shop 90 stores to find the
perfect couch? Now ask that same question about your mortgage.
Did you know? A typical mortgage broker has access to over 90
lenders! This can be a real advantage to ensuring you, the client,
receives the best mortgage plan and rate to suit your needs!

Canada has seen a surge of international migration over the last few years. In 2019, we welcomed a total of 313,580 immigrants to the country! This is an increase of 40,000 individuals when compared to 2017 numbers.

New to Canada Mortgages
According to planned immigration levels, it is estimated that Canada will receive 361,000 in 2022. Federal Immigration Minister, Marco Mendicino, stated that by 2022, “the year’s new permanent residents in Canada will account for one per cent of the population”.

With all these new faces wanting to plant roots in this great country, we wanted to touch base on how new immigrants can qualify to be homeowners!

PERMANENT RESIDENTS
If you are already a Permanent Resident or have received confirmation of Permanent Resident Status, you are eligible for a typical mortgage with a 5% down payment – assuming you have good credit.

NOT YET PERMANENT RESIDENTS OR HAVE LIMITED CREDIT
For Permanent Residents with limited credit, or individuals who have not yet qualified for Permanent Residency, there are still options! In fact, there are several ‘New to Canada’ mortgage programs. These are offered by CMHC, Sagen and Canada Guaranty Mortgage Insurance, and cater to this group of homebuyers.

NEW TO CANADA PROGRAMS
To qualify for New to Canada programs, you must have immigrated or relocated to Canada within the last 60 months and have had three months minimum full-time employment in Canada.

Individuals looking for 90% credit, a letter of reference from a recognized financial institution. Or, you will be required to provide six (6) months of bank statements from a primary account.

If you are seeking credit of 90.01% to 95%, you will need to produce an international credit report (Equifax or Transunion) demonstrating a strong credit profile. Or you will need to provide two alternative sources of credit, which demonstrate timely payments for the past 12 months. The alternative sources must include rental payment history and another alternative. This could be hydro/utilities, telephone, cable, cell phone or auto insurance.

ALTERNATIVE LENDERS
Another option for New to Canada residents, depending on your residency status and credit history, are alternative lenders such as B-Lenders and MIC’s (Mortgage Investment Operation). If you do not qualify for the New to Canada programs, or a standard mortgage, reach out to a DLC Mortgage Broker and they can help you navigate the alternative options!

new to canada? before submitting your mortgage application
Utilizing a mortgage professional will ensure you understand your options. They can also help determine the best program and mortgage choice for you. Before you talk with a mortgage professional, there are a few things you need to know when it comes to submitting an application – and getting approved – for your first mortgage in Canada:

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS!
If you’re new to the country but have weak credit, supporting documents will be needed. These may include: proof of income, 12 months worth of rental payments or letter from landlord, documented savings, bank statements and/or letter of reference from recognized financial institution. These documents all paint the picture of whether you are a safe investment for a lender.

BUILD YOUR CREDIT RATING!
This is one of the most important aspects to getting a mortgage! Your credit rating determines your reliability as a borrower. In turn, this will determine your down payment rate. A great way to build your credit is by getting a credit card to use and pay off each month. Paying other bills such as utilities, cell phones and rent can also contribute to your credit score and reliability.

START SAVING!
One of the most expensive aspects of home ownership is the down payment, which is an upfront cost but is vital to securing your future. As mentioned, the down payment can either be 5% or 10% depending on your status. However, if the purchase price exceeds $500,000, the minimum down payment will be 5% for the first $500,000 and 10% of any amount over $500,000 – regardless of your residency status.

CHOOSE A MORTGAGE PROVIDER!
Once you are ready to get your mortgage, you need get in touch with a local mortgage professional. They can help you review your options and find the best mortgage product to suit your needs.

Buying a house is an exciting step for anyone, but especially for individuals who are new to the country. As daunting as it may seem, purchasing a home is completely possible with a little knowledge and preparation. If you are new to Canada and looking to get a mortgage, connect with a DLC Mortgage Professional today for expert advice and options that best suit you!

Pay higher taxes or have a larger borrowing power? That is the question. There is balance in today’s mortgage space!
Did you know? In most cases, 35 per cent of your gross income for salaried, non-self employed or commissioned individuals is used to determine how much you can borrow.

According to a recent CIBC poll, nearly half (48%) of retired Canadians stopped working sooner than they expected. The result is that many retirees have saved less for retirement than they planned, making unexpected expenses all the more stressful once the income tap has run dry.

But you know what they say, preparation is the best protection against the unexpected. And with that in mind, here are some unexpected expenses that many retired Canadians experience that you might want to plan for.

Home maintenance and upgrades

Just like with our own bodies, homes require ongoing care and have unexpected breakdowns. That’s why it’s important to do regular check-ups and budget for the unexpected, as well as the expected.

Whether it’s replacing the roof, furnace, or appliances, or upgrading your home to be more accessible as you age, it’s important to plan ahead for how you will cover the costs of keeping the home you love safe, beautiful, and suited to your needs. Luckily, there are options like the CHIP Reverse Mortgage that can provide the funds to help you take care of your home without making monthly payments or affecting your OAS or CPP.

Personal and family emergencies

It’s sad to say, but most people at some point in their lives will have to deal with a sudden emergency. Whether it is needing to travel to see a family member who has had an accident or become ill, or people you love who may need some financial assistance during a trying time. The costs of dealing with such an emergency can be as draining on your finances as they are on your emotions.

Many financial institutions and advisors recommend setting up an emergency fund with 3-6 months salary. Of course, this means you would need to plan ahead and set up the fund before retiring and adding to it when possible in retirement. You can use the emergency fund calculator from Practical Money Skills Canada if you need to get started.

Frauds and scams

Between January 2014 and December 2017, Canadians lost more than $405 million to fraudsters. What’s more, these criminals largely target elderly citizens, with $94 million of that sum coming from Canadians aged 60 to 79. And with the growth of the digital age since then, there are now more opportunities for fraudsters than ever before.

No one expects to get scammed, but many retirees experience significant financial hardship due to fraudulent crimes. To help you avoid, detect, and report fraud, HomeEquity Bank has recently launched Catch the Scam, a series of online classes led by Frank Abagnale, the former conman whose life inspired the Leonardo DiCaprio film Catch Me If You Can. Frank now works as a consultant with organizations including the FBI to help tackle fraud, forgery, and embezzlement. Watch Frank’s Catch the Scam video series to see how you can avoid Canada’s most common scams.

Living longer than expected

While a long life is truly a blessing and something to celebrate, Canadians are living longer than they ever have. One result of this is that some of the financial advice being given today may not account for the realities of tomorrow. Of course, any retirement plan needs to begin with when you plan to retire, and end with how long you can realistically expect to stay retired.

Many Canadians are realizing that they will live longer and experience higher health costs toward the end of their lives. In order to be fully prepared, it’s important to over-plan to ensure you are fully covered for the (extra) long term.

Investment losses

While everyone understands that investments have a cycle with peaks and valleys, toward retirement most people tend to shift towards safer assets such as government bonds and Guaranteed Income Certificates (GICs) – but there is always a level of risk for any investment. Make sure your investments align with the risk you’re willing to tolerate, and that you have a way to get extra funds if needed. For instance, a reverse mortgage is an ideal option for many 55+ Canadians, since it’s tax-free, unlocks up to 55% of their home equity, and requires no monthly mortgage payments.

Contact your DLC Mortgage Broker to find out more about how the CHIP Reverse Mortgage can help you prepare for the unexpected in retirement.

Written By: Agostino Tuzi
Post Sponsored by HomeEquity Bank

Did you know? There are THREE potential types of lenders for a
mortgage: banks, credit unions and alternative lenders such as
monolines or private institutions.

To learn more,
Contact me
Modomortgages@gmail.com
(647) 901-7948

Housing Continued to Surge in February
Yesterday, the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) released statistics showing national home sales hit another all-time high in February 2021. Canadian home sales increased a whopping 6.6% month-on-month (m-o-m), building on the largest winter housing boom in history. On a year-over-year (y-o-y) basis, existing home sales surged an amazing 39.2%. As the chart below shows, February’s activity blew out all previous records for the month.
The seasonally adjusted activity was running at an annualized pace of 783,636 units in February. CREA’s revised forecast for 2021 is in the neighbourhood of 700,000 home sales. Strong demand notwithstanding, sales may be hard-pressed to maintain current activity levels in the traditionally busier spring months absent a surge of much-needed new supply. However, that could materialize as current COVID restrictions are increasingly eased and the weather starts to improve.

The month-over-month increase in national sales activity from January to February was led by the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and several other Ontario markets, along with Calgary and some markets in B.C. These offset a considerable decline in Montreal’s sales, where new listings have started 2021 at lower levels compared to those recorded in the second half of last year.

In line with heightened activity since last summer, it was a new record for February by a considerable margin (over 13,000 transactions). For the eighth straight month, sales activity was up in the vast majority of Canadian housing markets compared to the same month the previous year. Among the eight markets that posted year-over-year sales declines in February, minimal supply at the moment is the most likely explanation.

“We are right at the start of the first undisturbed (by policy or lockdown) spring housing market in years, and we also have the most extreme demand-supply imbalance ever by a large margin. So, the question is, what is going on? I think part of it is the demand that built up due to regulatory changes in the years leading up to COVID that is playing out now. Part of it is the demand that is being pulled forward from the future either in search of a home base to ride out the pandemic or to lock down a purchase amid rapidly rising prices while securing a record low mortgage rate,” said Shaun Cathcart, CREA’s Senior Economist. “But maybe the biggest factor here is the emergence of existing owners with major equity, prompted by the great shake-up that is COVID-19 to pull up stakes and move. First-time buyers, which we have a lot of, are now having to compete with that as well.”

New Listings
The number of newly listed homes rebounded by 15.7% in February, recovering all the ground lost to the drop recorded in January. With sales-to-new listings ratios historically elevated at the moment, indicating almost everything that becomes available is selling, it was not surprising that many of the markets where new supply bounced back in February were the same markets where sales increased that month.

With the rebound in new supply outpacing the gain in sales in February, the national sales-to-new listings ratio came off the boil slightly to reach 84% compared to the record 91.2% posted in January. That said, the February reading came in as the second-highest on record. The long-term average for the national sales-to-new listings ratio is 54.4%.

Based on a comparison of sales-to-new listings ratio with long-term averages, only about 15% of all local markets were in balanced market territory in February, measured as being within one standard deviation of their long-term average. The other 85% of markets were above long-term norms, in many cases well above. The first two months of 2021 and the second half of 2020 have seen record numbers of markets in seller’s market territory. For reference, the pre-COVID record of only around 55% of all markets in seller’s territory was set back at the beginning of 2002.

There were only 1.8 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of February 2021 – the lowest reading on record for this measure. The long-term average for this measure is a little over five months. At the local market level, some 40 Ontario markets were under one month of inventory at the end of February.

Home Prices

The Aggregate Composite MLS® Home Price Index (MLS® HPI) jumped by 3.3% m-o-m in February 2021 – a record-setting increase. Of the 40 markets now tracked by the index, all but one were up on a m-o-m basis.
The non-seasonally adjusted Aggregate Composite MLS® HPI was up 17.3% on a y-o-y basis in February – the biggest gain since April 2017 and close to the highest on record.

The largest y-o-y gains – above 35% range – were recorded in the Lakelands region of Ontario cottage country, Tillsonburg District and Woodstock-Ingersoll.

Y-o-y price increases in the 30-35% were seen in Barrie, Niagara, Bancroft and Area, Grey-Bruce Owen Sound, Kawartha Lakes, London & St. Thomas, North Bay, Northumberland Hills, Quinte & District, Simcoe & District and Southern Georgian Bay.

This was followed by y-o-y price gains in the range of 25-30% in Hamilton, Guelph, Cambridge, Brantford, Huron Perth, Kitchener-Waterloo, Peterborough and the Kawarthas and Greater Moncton.

Prices were up in the range from 20-25% compared to last February in Oakville-Milton and Ottawa, 18.8% in Montreal, 16.1% in Chilliwack, in the 10-15% range on Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley and Okanagan Valley, Winnipeg, the GTA, Mississauga and Quebec, the 5-10% range in Greater Vancouver, Victoria, Regina and Saskatoon, in the 3.5% range in Calgary and Edmonton, and 2.6% in St. John’s.

Detailed home price data by region is reported in the table below.

Bottom Line

We all know why the housing boom is happening:

Employment in higher-paying industries has actually risen despite the pandemic, supporting incomes among potential homebuyers.
Mortgage rates plumbed record lows and, while they’re backing up now, they’re still below pre-COVID levels, while many buyers are likely still on pre-approvals with rates locked in.
There’s been a dramatic shift in preferences toward more space, further outside major urban centres (commuting requirements are down and probably assumed to remain down).
Limited travel has created historic demand for second (recreational) properties, and households have equity in existing properties to tap.
Younger households are likely pulling forward moves that would have otherwise happened in the years ahead.
There has to be some FOMO and speculative activity in the market at this point. In January, 6% of all houses listed for sale in Toronto’s suburbs had been bought in the previous 12 months, up from 4% a year earlier, according to brokerage Realosophy.
On the flip side, there is precious little supply to meet that demand, at least in segments that the market wants.

In a separate release, Canadian housing starts pulled back to 245,900 annualized units in February, a still-high level following a near-record print in the prior month. This is not a winter wonder. Starts on a twelve-month average basis are running at 227k annualized, the strongest such pace since 2008, and over the past six months, starts are averaging 242k, the highest since at least 1990. Both single- and multi-unit starts declined in the month, as did all provinces but British Columbia.

Dr. Sherry Cooper
Chief Economist, Dominion Lending Centres
drcooper@dominionlending.ca

Sagen’s New to Canada Program (NTC) makes it easier for newcomers to get financing and to purchase their first home

If you’re shopping for a home, or have worked with a mortgage professional in the past, you’ve most likely heard of rate holds before. If not, it is something that every potential homeowner should be aware of. This is especially true for the application process as it has some great benefits for active shoppers.

If you are not familiar with the term, a ‘rate hold’ refers to locking in a specific mortgage rate for a limited period of time. This is offered through most lenders, assuming you are a potential client looking to purchase a home and need a mortgage. They are not eligible for individuals that are refinancing their mortgage, or looking to transfer it to another lender.

If you qualify for a rate hold, there are a few things you should know – from restrictions to benefits! The first and most important is that rate holds are typically only offered for a period of 90-120 days. So, once you have created your mortgage application with a broker and submitted it at the interest rate that best suits you, that rate will be protected for 90-120 days while you shop.

A rate hold is not a commitment. It does not force you to work with that lender, or the mortgage broker who submitted it. It also does not affect your future chances of receiving approval down the road. Instead, it simply guarantees that rate for you, if you find a home you want to purchase and sign the mortgage agreement before the rate hold is up.

This can be truly beneficial in volatile markets or those with high competition. If you submit your application to a lender for a fixed rate of 2.49% on a five year term, but while you are searching for your perfect home that rate moves up to 2.99% , the rate hold will protect you and allow you to still sign at 2.49% . This can mean huge savings!

For instance, if you are looking for a standard $500,000 mortgage (25 years amortization, fixed-rate, 5-year term), your monthly payments would be $2,237.35 at 2.49% interest. This would jump up to $2,363.67 per month at 2.99 percent. This is a difference of $126.32 per month or $1,515.84 annually; which can really add up on a 25-year mortgage!

Another benefit is that, if the rates go down, it does not stop you from taking advantage of the lower offer. Instead, it protects you from rate increases after you’ve determined your budget and are in the process of purchasing a home.

It is also important to note that, once the rate hold expires after 90-120 days, there is nothing stopping you from submitting another rate hold. It will just be subject to the interest rates as they stand on the day of submission.

Reaching out to a mortgage professional can help you better understand the current rates and benefits of a rate hold. In addition, they can help you find the best option to suit your needs thanks to their connections with hundreds of lenders! Why wait? Contact a DLC Mortgage Professional today.

The breakneck pace of technological change has fundamentally affected the way industries operate and innovate, and banking is no exception. Accessing financial services online has been the norm for years now, with an overwhelming majority of the population using digital channels for most banking transactions. The infrastructure that makes all of this possible, routinely processes massive amounts of sensitive data and needs to constantly evolve to ensure it all remains secure.

To gain a better understanding of how banks protect themselves and their customers, we spoke with Ali Farouk Shaikh, a Unified Communications Solutions Architect at Cisco Systems Inc. who works with major international financial institutions. Ali is a specialist in Software Defined Networking (SDN), with a focus on routing, encryption, and security for large financial services, retail, and manufacturing enterprises.

Where we were

How was customer and banking data handled by banks in the past?

In the classic model, all software applications and data for a bank would reside on a central data centre. Branches communicated with this centre through physical infrastructure entirely separate from (and unconnected to) what you’d use at home to access the internet.

Because of this, security parameters were well-defined. Data and locations were well-defined. It was cumbersome for external threats to access a bank’s network; conversely, it was difficult for users within the network to access the internet.

What prompted a change from that model?

What really started to drive transformative change was a combination of mobile devices and the cloud. The first iPhone pretty much broke the old model. Users could now access data from anywhere, and there was a demand for additional services to be delivered in a mobile-friendly way.

Simultaneously, modern applications were increasingly based in the cloud, leveraging external services such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon. This changing model meant that bank data was now moving in ways that it hadn’t before, and needed new modes of security and building modern infrastructure. In the industry, this is called the digitization of services—essentially moving from classic networks to networks for digitization.

So, the way customers wanted to access banking changed how banks operated?

Pretty much. The end-user experience has changed. Customers can’t be expected to come to the branch for banking anymore—both customers and bank employees use remote devices to access and provide service (whether this is smartphones or mobile devices on the customer side, or employees with iPads and a VPN on the bank’s side).

As a result, the applications (e.g. mobile banking apps) that provide this changed end-user experience had to move away from the traditional model. Banks were slow to introduce their own apps, but this was always the direction they had to head in. However, they also had to account for privacy and security concerns while meeting strict regulations—more importantly, they had to adapt and meet the requirements of a new digital world.

Now, these applications don’t reside with banks, they reside on the cloud and have to interact with various services that external companies like Google, Amazon, Salesforce, etc. provide. They rely on them for analytics, telemetry, auditing data, marketing data, etc. Because of this, the centers of data were no longer data centres. What I mean is, data now lived everywhere, from mobile devices to cloud services like Amazon Web Services (AWS). This new model required stronger safeguards, security, and encryption, because data now had to be transmitted over the internet.

Where we are

In light of this new model, how do banks ensure their data and their customers’ data is protected?

As I mentioned before, banks and financial institutions already had privacy, security, and regulatory compliance in mind when modernizing their operations. Now, there are three principles that are fundamental to maintaining a secure banking environment that satisfies both pre-existing and new regulations imposed by the government: confidentiality, integrity, and application security.

Could you elaborate on those principles? What does satisfying the “confidentiality” principle entail?

In this context, “confidentiality” just means making sure no one except you and your bank can see your data. Naturally, when using your banking application, you want to be assured that no one can access your data while it’s in transit. Banks go to great lengths to make certain that their systems use the highest encryption standards to protect their data and their clients’ data. This means that when using a properly developed banking app, no one will be able to see anything you’re doing on the app even should they somehow manage to covertly intercept your data. Confidentiality is achieved using the latest encryption—Transport Layer Security (TLS) with Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES256).

Side note:if you’re wondering how secure AES256 encryption is—it would reportedly take 77,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years and the dedication of the entirety of earth’s population to crack one encryption key. Not to mention, all of those people would need 10 computers each, capable of processing 1 billion key combinations per second. So, it’s safe to assume it’s pretty secure!

What about the “integrity” principle?

Integrity means ensuring data isn’t tampered with in any shape or form. The desire for this is pretty self-explanatory: you’d naturally want your data to be safeguarded from being tampered with. This is achieved in a number of ways. There are mechanisms to enforce data-integrity checks at the machine-level, to make sure data isn’t corrupted or altered in any way while in transit or when stored. There’s a lot of technology and processes that are used to achieve this, including packet duplication, parity, checksums, asynchronous data replication, etc. etc. In essence, even in cases of outages and system failure, data has to remain secure, untampered with, and stored on multiple systems to avoid total loss.

The “security” principle seems straightforward enough, but what exactly goes into achieving that?

So, “security” is the aspect that actually protects users from malicious threats from both “state” and “non-state” actors. From a security standpoint, “state” actors are individuals or groups sponsored by foreign governments that carry out malicious attacks. Banks are critical pieces of a country’s infrastructure and are thus natural targets. “Non-state” actors operate in a similar manner, but without the support or direction of a foreign government.

Banks and financial institutions safeguard against these threats by using firewalls to ensure only authorized applications can access data. This is where Intrusion Prevention Systems/Intrusion Detection Systems (IPS/IDS) are applied, both to only grant access to authorized users and to protect against malware. There are also measures taken to prevent Denial of Service (DoS) attacks so that a customer’s access to their banking services isn’t interrupted. A combination of these techniques is used in what’s called “stateful inspection”—that is to say, before data can move between a client and a server, the data is inspected in multiple ways to ensure that it’s clean and legitimate.

All of this is done by banks to provide their clients with the highest level of security while giving them a new, modern banking experience. Governments are, of course, very actively engaged in setting and implementing standards for security, which include things like PCI-DSS (the standard for the payment card industry), SOC2, ISO27001, ISO9001, ITIL, etc. all of which banks need to meet in order to operate.

Security is taken very seriously, to say the least.

Where we’re headed

What do you think the future holds for the banking industry? Does that future come with its own set of challenges?

Well, there are a couple of things: there’s an increasing evolution of machine-learning, the data it provides, as well the services that can be built on it. Not to mention the 5G revolution that will further accelerate the digitization of the world. I think we’ll begin to see new banking experiences including packages tailored for individuals based on their data, as well as new modes of banking like virtual tellers. Of course, this is all predicated on next-gen technology that has started to enter the marketplace.

The protection of individual data is of paramount importance. Things will have to be secure, untampered with and protected from malicious entities.

Innovation is always a challenge, but the industry will adapt. It always does!