Many financial institutions are considering deploying access control to their retail locations, and the benefits of doing so are many.   Enterprise access control brings centralized management and control, compliance reporting, enhanced safety and security and reduced administration and tracking overhead as compared to the legacy key management systems in place.

Here are some examples of access control benefits:

1. Keys and more keys: Physical keys are not secure, they are easily duplicated, and when employees or contractors leave, they are often not retrieved requiring the location to be rekeyed.  Enterprise access control gives a financial institution the ability to easily add and remove credentials rather than trying to distribute and retrieve keys.  Key management and re-keying are inefficient and expensive.
2. ATM access: In a recent conversation with a large financial institution, the security team was looking for a solution that would allow them to better manage ATM access.  With their current key-lock systems they realized that some locations had as many as 25 keys in circulation with their staff and multiple service providers.  An access control system would provide a much higher level of security and also allow the financial institution to manage access to these sites remotely, providing an audit trail.
3. Robbery lock-down: Many financial institutions have well documented and practiced robbery lock-down procedures.  One common practice is to lock the front door immediately after the perpetrator exits the building.  This unnecessarily puts the financial institution staff at risk as they often can’t see if there is still pending danger outside the front door.  Being able to trigger an access control lockdown from the counter or other safer location can easily and effectively lock down the location with less risk to staff and improve staff safety.
4. Multiple Level Access: As with several businesses some services are provided out of hours, such as cleaning, internal mail delivery, contractor access and building maintenance. Several of these services are expected to enter and exit within certain timeframes and are expected to set the alarm system on departure.  Those tasks don’t always happen as planned.  An enterprise level integrated security system offers an access control system that has an integrated intrusion alarm system. Features like this can offer pre-programmed arming and disarming times, setting and unsetting with the use of the access card removing the need for alarm pins. It can also provide an audit log of when the OOH service entered and exited the facility.  Having different unset modes can also allow the access control system to grant access to the areas that the OOH service needs and deny access to areas they do not. An additional function of an integrated alarm is that the intruder alarm will only disarm the required alarm circuits leaving sensitive areas still protected and remotely monitored.
5. Open/close: Financial institutions rely on their staff to open and close locations on time.  Opening a location often includes a location walk-around before fully opening for business.  This has become a favored time for criminals to attempt a robbery as they know the alarm system is off and there is only one person in the location.  Enterprise access control can be used to prevent others from entering the location after the door is opened, but before the branch is open for business.  It also provides an audit trail of who opened and closed and when.

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