Swiss financial services have experienced remarkable growth over the last few decades, expanding into key markets such as Singapore, Dubai, and Hong Kong. However, despite this expansion, the communication infrastructure has predominantly remained hosted in Swiss data centers. Additionally, the adoption of remote working and cloud services has placed added strain on the existing infrastructure. As a result, banks and investment firms are now prioritizing the enhancement of employee experience while maintaining a focus on security and compliance as core elements of their architectural strategy.

Given the recent series of critical vulnerabilities affecting most VPN technologies, IT and security teams are dedicating a significant amount of effort to patching and maintaining legacy infrastructure. These outdated architectures, with an expanded attack surface, fail to adequately protect company data. In light of the escalating cyber threats, nothing within a company network should be implicitly trusted, and verification should consistently be enforced based on a set of policies.

The increase of cyber threats requires that all security solutions work synchronously to detect and prevent breaches. Intelligence should be created and shared across security solutions when near-miss occurs or when specific users are breached. However, multiples solutions tend to create silos which reduce visibility and detection, how can Swiss banks and investment firms provide access to sensitive data based on a dynamic posture aggregated from multiple security signals ?

Using generative AI (GenAI) tools like ChatGPT is becoming essential for enhancing employee efficiency, but this widespread adoption introduces new security concerns. As more employees leverage these tools to boost productivity, significant cybersecurity risks, such as leakage of sensitive data, emerge. Blocking access to GenAI sites is non-sense because they are crucial for maintaining a competitive edge. But how can we balance security and innovation, by enforcing robust security policies without hindering access to these innovative tools and stifling progress?

More and more banks outsourced part of their activities outside of Switzerland due to shortage of specialist IT staff. But how to enable those teams in an efficient way while remaining compliant with FINMA regulations? Until now, VDI has been the widely adopted solution, but financial services are faced with cost, security and operational challenges. Lighter and more secure options are emerging.