Video Conferencing for the Financial Services Industry

There is a new approach to video conferencing: Cloud computing and off-the-shelf peripherals that work anywhere a PC, web browser and Internet connection can be found. Now video conferencing can reach desktops, training facilities and boardrooms alike.

This new approach has many advantages in financial services including lower hardware costs, operation over existing networks, reach to any desktop and push-button ease-of-use that are significant in generally distributed offices found in many credit unions, banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms.

Tech Savvy

The financial services industry spends an outsized portion of overall revenue on information technology; which is perfectly natural since it is a transaction-processing industry. As an early adopter of video conferencing hardware, the most typical application — indeed, virtually the only application — was boardroom-to-boardroom meetings among the executive suite. Today, tech savvy IT managers have greatly enriched the variety of video conferencing applications in financial services by taking advantage of plug-n-play video peripherals, web browsers and software and online services such as Nefsis.

The industry has embraced video conferencing as a productivity tool to empower multiple offices to collaborate in real-time, train employees on increasingly sophisticated internal systems and expand customer contact among commercial accounts anywhere around the world.

High-Quality Video Enlivens Multiple Office Web Meetings

The introduction of Intel® Core™ Core 2 Duo processors and Nefsis multi-core concurrency puts more processing power in a typical desktop or conference room PC than any legacy video codec. The result is Nefsis multipoint video conferencing renders a high-quality, full resolution, full frame-rate display. Given equivalent bandwidth, Nefsis delivers video at the same technical specifications as traditional room-based systems, but without the addition of expensive MCUs. Where adequate bandwidth is not available, Nefsis default and automatic bandwidth throttling provide the best quality video available to each participant (on a participant-by-participant basis).

At the screenshots and top and bottom of the page you can see various Nefsis video layouts: docked-videos, video-only and dual-monitor support with videos on one monitor and live sharing on another. There are many more such as picture-in-picture and floating videos. More layouts ...

Security, Bandwidth & IT Controls for Policy Compliance

As always in financial services, security is critically important. Interoffice communications must traverse firewalls and proxy servers, while ensuring data is secure. Nefsis software as a service (SaaS) provides IT staff industry standard tools for communications security and policy compliance. In addition, Nefsis also offers an on-premise software option for even more controls over physical routing, network performance and security settings, including higher levels of encryption and use of the customer's own security certificate as may be required by institutions under policies with heavy restrictions.

Nefsis also provides an administrative console for user and feature controls; these can be very helpful in desktop video conferencing and branch-office scenarios where control over live sharing and video resolution are required for bandwidth conservation. More about bandwidth ...

Built-In, Live Collaboration for Training Programs

The growing complexity of financial service products, internal controls and compliance requirements has lead to an increase in training requirements over the years. This can be especially challenging where small, highly distributed branch offices and non-stop, nationwide operations are a concern. Nefsis desktop reach, together with its live desktop sharing and collaboration features make it an ideal solution in these scenarios.

For example, The Members Group serves credit unions, banks and mortgage institutions. They explained their use of Nefsis for training programs when they said "Web conferencing provides TMG with a low cost and efficient method to train customers and employees and supplements the traditional on-site training process. It has saved us a great deal of money on travel and is more convenient for our clients as well." — Jeff F., The Members Group.  Case studies ...

Another nice feature is Nefsis video conferencing record-and-playback. Live, instructor-led training sessions can be recorded in industry standard file formats, for later replay by anyone who missed a session or as more content for play-on-demand e-learning applications.

The Business Case for Web Video Conferencing:
Hard Cash Travel Reduction & Soft Benefits

The business case for web video conferencing most often rests on hard cash savings through travel expense reduction. Repeat travel to the same company locations is a prime target; recurring meetings with internal staff are easy to move to online venues where everyone has ready access to their presentations and spreadsheets. Additional cash savings may apply where training and IT staff submit expense reports and battle cross-town traffic or airport commutes to conduct desk-side and remote office visits. The business case is further bolstered with soft benefits such as improving inter-office communications, training frequency and custom contact time through online meetings; plus telecommuting and greenhouse gas reduction programs in support of corporate citizenship goals.

More: Video Conferencing ROI | Greenhouse Gas Reduction

See a Live Demo or Start Your Own FREE Trial

To see Nefsis multiparty video conferencing from the comfort of your own office, schedule a live demo when convenient for you. You can invite as many co-workers from other offices as you like and see how Nefsis would perform during one of your own online meetings.

You can also start a free trial right now and test Nefsis for free for 14 days.

Nefsis is a registered trademark of Nefsis Corporation. Intel, Pentium and Intel Core are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.