Volksbank Ermstal-Alb

The Volksbank Ermstal-Alb eG is a German cooperative bank based in the southwest of Germany. Founded in 1867, the company now operates 33 business units in the Reutlingen district for nearly 68,000 customers, of whom more than half of them are cooperative members. The Volksbank offers financial services for private and business customers.

Conflicting demands

On the one hand, there are tightening regulatory requirements for the credit business that must be met, as well as the increasing demands on data protection - especially when dealing with the highly sensitive customer and account data. On the other hand, customers expect fast and easy data exchange via electronic media.

The challenge

The task was to find a solution that could facilitate the exchange of data between the bank and the customer, safely and which was easy to use for employees and customers. In addition, the customer should also be able to transmit data quickly and securely to their bank consultant electronically. 

A further challenge was the integration into HCL Notes. Many software solution developers do not support the Notes platform. In addition, the introduction of the new process should not lead to any major changes in the Bank‘s organisational structure, procedures or IT systems.

The solution

After the IT experts of the Volksbank had tested many other manufacturers’ products they decided for Cryptshare. Other software solutions lacked either one of the desired functions or an intuitive usability. However, the solution should meet numerous criteria at once: the integration into HCL Notes, the transmission without ponderous prior registration, the possibility to encrypt an email or only the attachment regardless of size. Ultimately, Cryptshare offered the features and the best value for money.

The advantages

With Cryptshare for Notes, data is safely exchanged regardless of size. The product removes the file attachments from email messages, saves them encrypted on the Cryptshare server, and inserts a user defined template of information including the download link into the email message to the recipient. External recipients have the option to reply confidentially via the Cryptshare Web App by simply clicking on the link and following simple instructions.

Cryptshare simply changes the way the outgoing mail is sent and improves the bank‘s security capability with regard to email traffic and data exchange with external recipients at the same time simplifying the secure data exchange for the users. The functionality of Cryptshare was tested for approximately four weeks before the solution was finally put into operation. No special training was required.

As an added bonus an agreement on order data management, including the technical and organisational measures for data protection pursuant to paragraph § 9 sentence 1 of the German Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz - BDSG) could be delivered.

The result

Due to the positive test results and the high coverage of requirements the IT decision makers decided in favour of Cryptshare. The installation process was quick and was well supported with contacts in the support team being easy to reach and answered questions quickly.