Live From BS&T Executive Summit: Can Security Be a Differentiator for Banks?

"Sixteen years ago, if you asked me if I was going to be dealing with the kinds of things I'm dealing with today, I would have said no," said Dick Harp, SVP and director corporate security for Huntington National Bank.Following 9/11 Harp was forced to buy an anthrax pathogen tester for his banks, an entirely different type of security element than the traditional cameras and vaults.

Making security a value proposition and balancing security expense to make the bank grow and add value are problems that Harp is faced with daily, he said during yesterday's security session at the Bank Systems & Technology Executive Summit in Phoenix, Ariz.

As a direct bank, with no branches, MetLife Bank has its own unique set of security challenges, said Mark LaPenta, CTO and COO for the $7 billion bank. Preserving the bank's reputation and increasing customers' trust in online bank are two of LaPenta's top priorities.

Among the growing threats is ACH exploitation. LaPenta says the ACH rules require updating. Data proliferation also creates it own challenges, he says. Knowing how and where to integrate risk data into future data initiatives is a challenge.