Business
Using consumer technology in business should be a thing of the past – and here’s why

By Joanna Jagiello, head of marketing at The Barcode Warehouse
Who hasn’t had that heart-stopping moment when your phone slips neatly out of your hand, bounces three times and lands screen-side down on the concrete? Or what about the time you were balancing your tablet atop your pile of paperwork and an errant elbow sent it hurtling towards the corner of the desk, and on to the floor? While these are costly and frustrating accidents to have with personal devices, these mistakes are having an impact on businesses too.
With a sharp increase in the number of workers operating across hybrid environments and, therefore, requiring more devices in order to stay connected and successfully complete their work, a businesses’ device estate has grown significantly. With this comes a number of new challenges.
Not only do organisations need to consider, with greater detail, the range of equipment required by their employees such as headphones and headsets, keyboards, mice, and charging devices, but managers have also been forced to think about the physical durability of their chosen tech.
Safeguarding their investments from any adverse working conditions and tough environments will only serve to maintain, and even improve on, productivity by reducing the downtime in the break/fix cycle.
As a business, if you’re considering a refresh of your device estate, then weighing up the cost/benefit of investing in more appropriate technology, such as rugged devices. In this article, we discuss the differences between existing consumer-grade, and rugged devices, along with the advantages and disadvantages of investing in new technology.
What’s the difference between consumer and rugged technology?
Firstly, both rugged and consumer devices cover items including smartphones, desktops, tablets and laptops that employees use to complete their work.
Consumer-grade devices can be purchased off-the-shelf and are often used both in a personal and professional capacity. Simply adding a hardened or rugged case does not ‘ruggedise’ a device though; such devices have been built and designed to withstand harsh environments and the more rigorous demands of commercial use. Rugged equipment protects internal components too and often has additional built-in protection against dust, moisture, and extreme hot and cold temperatures. They can also have additional features built-in such as barcode scanners and longer-lasting batteries.
There are three grades of rugged device; semi-rugged, fully rugged and ultra-rugged, with the latter being close to indestructible. Different businesses will require different levels of ‘toughness’ depending on the severity of the environment that they will be used in. For example, someone working in sales that often finds themselves working in the field would benefit from a semi-rugged device, whereas construction workers would benefit from fully rugged or ultra-rugged devices.
So, why is now the time to consider investing in new technology?
Equipping employees with appropriate technology improves productivity
Research by Microsoft Surface, conducted with YouGov, found that 66% of employees with a work-related, company-owned laptop or tablet have been working with the same device since the start of the covid-19 pandemic, with the figure increasing to 71% for frontline workers. The same research suggested that older devices could be impacting productivity after 33% of employees who received new tech devices reported an increase in productivity.
When thinking about the most important features of a new device, 58% of employees reported that reliability was their number one most desired feature, closely followed by responsiveness when working (56%), battery life (45%), screen size (43%), and start-up speed (36%).
This statistic may be because businesses are demanding more from their employees’ devices than ever before. With the increasing usage of cloud applications, big data, AI and the Internet of Things, organisations need to ensure that the devices they are supplying to their employees are suitable, and have the capability to deal with these more significant data sets, workloads and environments.
Why choose rugged devices over consumer-grade?
When considering the devices to equip their workers with, businesses have to take into consideration a myriad of factors ranging from cost to functionality, and operating systems to device types. However, despite the heavier workloads required from devices, many organisations continue to use consumer-grade technology, which may be proving a false economy.
Key considerations
If your business is still using consumer-grade technology then you are exposing your team, and your organisation, to unnecessary vulnerability. Let’s discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of choosing rugged devices.
Cost efficiency
While updating your device estate may seem like an initial outlay your business is hesitant to make, continuing to use consumer-grade technology may prove to be a false economy.
Businesses considering rugged technology are often looking to maximise efficiency, improve productivity and reduce the cost of maintaining, repairing and replacing their device estate over time. When you consider how rigorous the physical testing that rugged devices are put through is, it’s easy to see how they would outlast consumer devices. This leads us in to our second consideration – durability.
Durability
From shock-mounted hard drives and floating system components to high IP rated dust and moisture protection and all-magnesium casings, rugged technology is designed to withstand harsh environments and bounce back from drops, slips, and temperatures that would otherwise render consumer devices useless.
By investing in technology that can operate efficiently in all-terrain environments, you are ensuring that profitability and productivity can be maintained – no matter where your employees may find themselves. Time spent adjusting elements like screen brightness due to poor visibility, or waiting for devices to come up (or down) to operational temperature is all time, and money, lost.
In addition to this, while one-off repairs or maintenance tasks for consumer-grade devices certainly won’t break the bank, it’s another expense that can build up over time. With more devices waiting for repair, the more downtime your business will experience; so while investing in rugged devices may seem more expensive in the beginning, the reduction in downtime due to enhanced durability and the option to introduce buffer and repair management to your estate means that repairs, maintenance and replacements take much less time, and money, out of your day!
Business future-proofing
If you’ve missed the roll out of 5G, where have you been? The new superfast network started rolling out in the UK back in 2019, with full deployment by 2023 which will see the 3.5GHz, 5G, network cover 68% of the population, and 12 % of the geographical area in the UK, according to Statista. With 5G set on becoming the standard in mobile connectivity, so too will the number of manufacturers supplying 5G compatible devices.
In order to keep up, businesses will need to think forward to what the state of technology looks like. If firms continue to invest in consumer tech, they are already committing to making further purchases, and increasing costs. Investing in rugged technology, on the other hand, is most likely to deliver improved return on investment due to its increasing popularity and ability to help workers stay better connected and, therefore, more productive.
Final thoughts
Aside from being cost-efficient, rugged devices can be implemented seamlessly into your work environment. With functionality and accessories that accentuate the abilities of the device, and your workers, they are a worthwhile investment that will save you money in downtime while providing a more reliable, long-term solution to your tech needs.
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Business
Beyond compliance: why the shift to ISO 20022 is more than a messaging upgrade

Maria-Christine Diaz, Senior Business Strategy Manager at Eastnets, explores why ISO 20022 is more than a mandate – it’s a catalyst laying the groundwork for future-proof payment services
The SWIFT-mandated migration by November 2025 is set to end MT message processing for interbank cross-border payment instructions and cash management reporting (CBPR+). Yet, according to SWIFT as of December 2024, only 33% of organisations had adopted ISO 20022 for CBPR+. It highlights a deeper issue: many organisations still see it as a technical obligation when really, the migration implications stretch far beyond protocol upgrades and format translations.
ISO 20022 is not a one-off project. It is a multi-year, cross-functional transformation program touching every part of the business. It’s a strategic opportunity and a chance to rethink how financial institutions manage payments infrastructure, compliance and customer value propositions in a rapidly evolving digital economy.
However, it demands a coordinated, business-wide response.
Why tactical fixes won’t solve strategic shifts
At its core, ISO 20022 replaces the flat, ambiguous MT messaging format with structured, contextualised data that applies across all payment types, domestic and cross-border. It allows institutions to capture and exchange richer details – from payment purpose code and country of origin to beneficiary information – with far greater quality, accuracy and completeness.
That quality creates tangible value. It promises to strengthen Straight-Through Processing (STP) efficiency and dramatically improve the effectiveness of fraud detection and anti-money laundering (AML) processes. How? By reducing the number of investigation cases and false positives that have long strained operations teams. ISO 20022 also supports regulatory focus on real-time transaction monitoring and incident transparency, something central to frameworks like the EU’s Payment Services Directive 3, the AML Directives and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).
But ISO 20022 doesn’t just support regulatory alignment, it fundamentally alters the operational risk landscape. Most institutions still rely on compliance processes and infrastructures built for MT messages, which are poorly suited to handle the granularity and structure of ISO 20022 data. And when this richer data is simply “bolted on” to legacy systems, problems quickly arise.
Many banks are pursuing a tactical fix for what is a strategic shift – it’s like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. Systems and processes were built around the limited MT format which are flat, fixed and often ambiguous. Existing rule sets designed for flat MT messages begin to break down, triggering too many false positives and overwhelming compliance teams with noise instead of insights.
To realise the full value of ISO 20022, institutions need to map how payment data flows across their organisation. This helps identify legacy workarounds, uncover operational risks and pinpoint where ISO 20022 adds complexity or unlocks new opportunity. Therefore, a comprehensive business-wide impact assessment is essential to strengthen AML, sanctions screening and fraud detection processes.
With that foundation, banks can sharpen customer insights, strengthen fraud and risk controls, and develop new value-added services. As sanctions lists and fraud rules update in near real-time, combined with financial crime compliance costs surpassing $1 trillion in 2024, the ability to act on cleaner, more contextual data has become business-critical.
Therefore, making ISO 20022 work for the business means moving beyond retrofitting and honing in on three areas that drive real transformation.
More impact than meets the eye
The real opportunity begins when ISO 20022 data is integrated into core systems, not just translated at the edges. Payments data now impacts every business line – from retail and corporate banking to capital markets and trade finance – influencing every process from front to back office.
Again, migration is not a one-off project but something that touches every part of the business, from reconciliation processes to customer-facing services. The key challenge of this transformation is knowing where the payment is, its status, without ambiguity, at any moment. Think of it like tracking an Amazon parcel delivery. To manage this, institutions need lightweight analytics tools to monitor and track payment messages in real-time across systems, to reduce reconciliation errors, manual workarounds and operational risk.
The true value lies not in seeing the information, but in using it to streamline operations, resolve issues faster and deliver better outcomes.
The path to optimised financial crime detection
As ISO 20022 fundamentally offers richer information, one of the most immediate benefits lies in financial crime prevention.
To take advantage, institutions must recalibrate financial crime systems to work with clearer, structured and contextual ISO 20022 data. This isn’t just about better information, it’s about better precision. Finetuning these systems through precise finetuning techniques to improve detection precision and strengthen risk mitigation, all while reducing and operational costs.
Take Sohar International, a bank operating in the Middle East, as an example. It reduced its false positives by 67%, helping to distinguish between legitimate and suspicious transactions, simply by optimising screening strategies and using structured ISO 20022 data. That kind of result creates space for smarter, faster decisions across the organisation, all while strengthening its AML compliance framework.
An opportunity for leaner payment processes
Additionally, ISO 20022 presents the perfect opportunity to modernise payment infrastructures with a modular orchestration layer – a flexible, business-agnostic workflow engine that seamlessly translates and routes messages across systems. This shields core business applications from changes in formats, protocols and standards, reducing maintenance overhead and operational risk and accelerating ISO 20022 adoption without disrupting core operations.
Moreover, it enables real-time monitoring, detection and investigation of issues such as duplicate payments or delayed messages, providing transaction integrity across the entire lifecycle. Having infrastructure agility translates directly into business performance, which can lead to increased cross-jurisdiction visibility in real-time and optimised STP rates, making sure payments move securely, efficiently and in line with market expectations. .
By building this agility, financial institutions lay the groundwork to rapidly adapt to future market changes, new services and customer demands without overhauling core systems. It also provides real-time visibility and transaction integrity, making sure payments move securely, efficiently and in line with market expectations.
Unlocking the true value of ISO 20022
Treating compliance as the end goal is a strategic misstep. So, without a coordinated business-wide transformation strategy, supported by optimised financial crime tools, a lean orchestration layer and real-time monitoring, institutions risk operational disruptions and regulatory scrutiny impacting their bottom line.
What’s ultimately at stake is more than a messaging upgrade. It’s the opportunity to reshape financial infrastructure for an era defined by sustainable growth and operational resilience.
The real value of ISO 20022 lies not in translating messages, but in transforming the business. Those who embrace the shift – not just to adopt, but to adapt – will be best positioned to unlock smarter, data-driven growth in the years ahead.
Business
The Quiet Strength of Being Clear – Why Assertiveness Matters More Than Ever for Founders

By Rebecca Sutherland, CEO and Founder of HarbarSix
There’s a word that often makes people shift a little in their seats. Assertiveness. It can sound sharp, maybe even a bit harsh, like something that belongs in boardrooms filled with ego or in negotiation books gathering dust on someone’s shelf. But in truth, assertiveness, when you really understand it, is one of the most compassionate tools we have as leaders.
Because at its core, assertiveness isn’t about being pushy. It’s about being clear.
And when you’re building something, a business, a team, a dream that lives outside the ordinary, that kind of clarity becomes essential. Without it, you end up drifting, making decisions that don’t feel quite right, saying yes when you mean no, and slowly watching the thing you once felt lit up by become a source of tension or exhaustion.
I’ve seen it happen more than once. A brilliant, creative founder full of drive and vision, slowly ground down by too many compromises, too much people-pleasing, too little space to breathe. They don’t lack skill or ambition. What they’re missing is that anchor, the ability to be assertive without feeling like they have to apologise for it.
So, let’s unpack that, because I think we need to talk about how to lead from a place that’s both strong and soft. Firm but open and rooted in who you are.
Assertiveness starts with self-trust
Before you can speak clearly to others, you must be clear with yourself. What do you stand for? What kind of culture are you trying to build? What do you value, not just on a branding level, but deep in your bones?
Because if you don’t know that, you’ll find yourself pulled in all directions. You’ll agree to partnerships that don’t serve you, hire people based on panic rather than alignment, and find it hard to hold boundaries when the stakes feel high.
But when you do know—when you’ve taken the time to understand what really matters to you—it becomes easier to communicate it, calmly and confidently, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Saying what you mean isn’t unkind—it’s respectful
There’s a misconception, especially among founders who want to be “good” leaders, that being direct is somehow abrasive. That if you’re too clear, you might upset people. But in my experience, the opposite is true.
When you wrap your truth in too many layers of softening or delay saying the hard thing because you’re worried about how it will land, you actually create more confusion, not less. People want to know where they stand. Your team, your investors, your clients—they respect leaders who can speak with warmth and certainty.
You don’t need to bark orders or dominate a room. But you do need to be able to say, “This isn’t working for me,” or “This direction doesn’t feel right,” or even, “I’ve changed my mind.” That kind of honesty is a form of care. It protects your energy, and it gives everyone around you a clearer playing field.
Boundaries aren’t barriers—they’re invitations to trust
One of the most powerful forms of assertiveness is knowing when to say no. Or not yet. Or not like this.
As founders, we’re often wired to keep giving—to clients, to our team, to the business itself. But that constant giving, without boundaries, leads to burnout. And more than that, it models a kind of unsustainable leadership where overextending becomes the norm.
Boundaries, when set with intention, are not walls. They’re signals. They say, “This is how I work best,” or “This is what I need to stay at my best,” or “Here’s the line where my role ends and yours begins.” And far from pushing people away, they create the safety and trust needed for real collaboration.
Not everyone will like it—and that’s okay
Here’s the part that might sting a little: not everyone will like your assertiveness. Some people will bristle when you stop bending over backwards. Others may be used to you saying yes to everything, and might struggle when you start to reclaim your space.
Let them. Your job isn’t to be liked by everyone. Your job is to build something honest, sustainable, and true. And the people who are meant to walk alongside you? They’ll stay, in fact, they’ll probably thank you for the clarity.
Practice before you need it
Like any skill, assertiveness gets easier with practice. Start small. Have that conversation you’ve been avoiding. Say no to the next thing that doesn’t feel aligned. Express a need clearly without over-explaining. And then do it again. Not perfectly, just consistently.
If you’re not used to it, it might feel clunky at first. That’s okay. Clarity is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.
The most powerful leaders are not the loudest
They’re not the ones who dominate meetings or chase visibility for its own sake. They’re the ones who know who they are. Who can sit in discomfort without losing their footing. Who can say the hard thing with softness and stay true to their vision when the noise gets loud.
Assertiveness isn’t about power over others—it’s about being in your own power. And when you lead from that place, it changes everything.
For your business. For your team. And most importantly, for you.
Business
Innovation in banking must go hand in hand with security, and here’s why

Dean Clark, Group Chief Technology Officer for GFT
The banking sector is transforming more and more, with banks under pressure to meet customers’ evolving expectations. This means that even the most traditional institutions have to move away from legacy systems and adopt modern technologies such as cloud computing and AI. The aim of this shift is not just to keep pace with digital-native competitors, but also to improve operational efficiency and deliver better customer experiences.
However, innovation brings new challenges. Transitioning from centralised mainframes to cloud-based platforms is a complex process that can’t happen overnight. Amid this transformation, banks must ensure that security remains a top priority. Striking the right balance between modernisation and robust security is essential to building and maintaining consumer trust in the digital age.
Balancing agility with security
Multicloud is a key component of digital transformation strategies in the financial sector. Many banks are relying on hybrid multicloud to modernise and keep up with the evolving tech landscape. In the meantime, new digital banks are launching entirely on cloud-native platforms, which helps support agility and scalability from day one.
Cloud technologies offer many advantages, including improved performance, flexibility and faster innovation. However, despite these benefits, they do come with security challenges. Cloud infrastructure, often built and managed using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), can include some vulnerabilities and give an entry point into a bank’s system to malicious actors. As such, ensuring that IaC adheres to best practices is essential to avoid misconfigurations or exploitable vulnerabilities as early as possible.
The protection of consumer data must also be central to any digital transformation strategy. Security must be deeply embedded not only in backend infrastructure but also in the user-facing layers such as web portals and mobile applications. This is critical to maintain consumer trust and improve retention.
Why a unified security platform is essential
When undergoing digital transformation, financial institutions need a unified security solution to help streamline the security management process by having all the necessary tools in one place. In fact, a unified security solution is built on three interconnected pillars. First, security must be embedded directly into development pipelines. This integration helps identify and mitigate risks and misconfigurations early, before they can impact production. Second, through continuous monitoring and management of cloud assets, banks can gain more visibility and control over their security posture. Third, runtime protection safeguards cloud workloads, web applications and APIs through tools like cloud threat detection, host security, container security, serverless security, and web application & API protection. Together, these pillars help to establish a robust security framework. This way, digital banks can minimise risks, streamline operations and ensure compliance with regulatory demands.
The benefits of ‘zero trust’
Modern cloud-native banks rely on ‘zero trust’ security models more and more. ‘Zero trust’ refers to the principle according to which every request to access an organisation’s system should be carefully reviewed. This means that no user or system is trusted by default. They’re all subject to identification and authentication checks. This helps set clear boundaries between the applications the users are accessing and the resources available in the cloud. And even after access has been granted, all activity is monitored on an ongoing basis to identify potential malicious behaviour that could compromise digital banking systems. This continuous verification enhances visibility into potential threats and facilitates compliance with regulatory standards.
To further reinforce security, mutual transport layer security (TLS) can be implemented as a core design principle, enabling secure authentication with third-party entities over the internet. By adopting such measures, digital banks can build a resilient security foundation that safeguards against evolving threats whilst preserving customer trust and operational integrity.
The example of Salt Bank
Salt Bank is a next-generation digital bank launched in Romania. It serves as a good example of a financial institution that embedded security into its digital banking platform from the start. Salt Bank was built and launched in under 12 months, showcasing the power of an approach to innovation that heavily relies on security.
Salt Bank implemented a range of advanced security measures, including zero trust architecture, threat modelling, cloud security posture management, and automated security operations, guided by this security-by-design philosophy. These tools helped the bank implement a strong defence against cyber threats whilst still focusing on improving customer experience.
Central to Salt Bank’s strategy was Engine by Starling, a SaaS platform designed specifically for digital banking, paired with Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Cloud. Prisma Cloud played a key role in securing the bank’s cloud infrastructure, offering capabilities such as misconfiguration monitoring, risk detection, remediation and compliance management. Together, these technologies provide a unified and efficient approach to managing security in a complex cloud environment.
The future of modern banking is all about security
As digital transformation accelerates across the financial sector, companies must keep security at the top of their agenda. Whilst innovating is key to keeping up with evolving trends and changing customer expectations, it can’t be done without prioritising security. If security isn’t embedded in every layer of an organisation’s digital infrastructure, vulnerabilities may be introduced within the system and easily exploited by malicious actors. And once cyber attackers are in the system, everyone knows it can lead to chaos.
But security isn’t just for defensive purposes, it’s also a strategic advantage. In a climate of growing digital distrust, the most secure bank doesn’t just win compliance, it also wins customers. By choosing to turn advanced security into a visible product feature, not just an internal practice, banks can build marketable trust and differentiate from fintech challengers who may cut corners in pursuit of speed.

Beyond compliance: why the shift to ISO 20022 is more than a messaging upgrade

The Quiet Strength of Being Clear – Why Assertiveness Matters More Than Ever for Founders

Innovation in banking must go hand in hand with security, and here’s why

How 5G and AI are shaping the future of eHealth

Stealthy Malware: How Does it Work and How Should Enterprises Mitigate It?
