How does a large national bank reduce false alarms by 97%, increase the efficiency of its security operations by 48%, decrease its costs per site by 34%, all while reducing personnel costs by 23%? The secret behind these impressive results in banking incident management was revealed during a Qognify webinar, featuring special guest, Julio Molano, CEO of the Bogota, Colombia-based security services company – Siete24.
In conversation with Qognify’s Nick Karakulko, Julio took attendees on a fruitful journey from 2014 to present day. At the time Siete24 began working with the bank, it was operating 800 branches, 27 offices and 3200 ATMs, all requiring round-the-clock protection. Their security infrastructure included more than 90,000 sensors, 15,000 surveillance cameras, 3,000 DVRs and 1,500 access points. The bank was managing this expansive enterprise by operating five independent systems, using legacy software and was heavily reliant on the knowledge of its operators. Julio highlights the scale of the challenge: “In 2014 the bank was receiving two-million alerts per month, which was far more than it could effectively handle.”

Anticipating Future Incident Management Needs

With the bank planning major expansion, they needed a solution that would not only deliver immediate benefits but have the ability to scale significantly. The solution that met this need was the market-leading enterprise incident management system – Qognify Situator.
Situator is tried, tested and proven in the banking sector, and this was an important consideration in selecting the system. Used by Millennium BCP in Portugal since 2011 (case study), Situator reduced their false alarms from more than 20,000 to 1,200 per annum.
Since Siete24 began its work with the bank six years ago, the scope of the project has grown. The number of sites being monitored doubled and the volume of sensors increased by 50%. “Today, Situator is handling up to 18 million alerts per month, of which 71,200 are verified and 109 confirmed as an incident. Each incident is managed using best practice procedures we have defined within the system,” explains Julio. “Despite this dramatic increase in the size of the project, our average response time to critical events has fallen from five minutes in 2016 to just 50-seconds in 2020. We have found that the more alerts we process the more efficient and effective we become.”
Situator has created such a positive impact on operational performance, the bank recently extended its contract with Siete24 for a further three-years. Julio concludes: “The bank requires that we have 99.9% availability, and we are financially accountable for any losses. Situator has not only met our service level obligations but has given the bank far more than it anticipated.”
 

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