In the world of intra-financial institutions, where banks work with banks to ensure a mutual sense of safety, security is paramount. These elite and immensely powerful entities are just as bound by the fragility of data as any other business, especially as digital channels and mobile wallets come into play. This is the market BankservAfrica, a payment transaction business, has cornered and hopes to conquer in the coming years.

“I spend about 37 percent of my technology budget just on IT security products. It is my job to be the trusted utility. … So I’ve got to make sure that I protect data and customer information,” said Hamman Ferreira, chief technical officer of BankservAfrica.

Ferreira spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Stu Miniman (@stu), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, during this year’s VeeamOn event in New Orleans, Louisiana. (* Disclosure below.)

A modernization exercise

With such large customers to contend with, and with the ever-changing data landscape and the means to manipulate it, BankservAfrica has had its work cut out for it. “The payments industry is going through a bit of a modernization exercise,” Ferreira said. “It’s now all the different digital channels, and these days also all the mobile wallets coming into play.”

As the financial industry’s digital evolution continues to progress, Ferreira and his team are striving to meet the demands of a changing marketplace. “What we see is different channels coming on. In South Africa, for instance, we’ve got like 150 odd mobile wallets. So how do I build things for operability in between that — in that you can actually use your bank’s wallet with another bank in the region?” he explained.

But while the financial industry’s digital revolution has been a challenge, Ferreira said BankservAfrica has more than met the challenge and continues to offer its clients a rock-solid foundation upon which to build their businesses.

“It’s that solutioning, making sure that the solution, the product, the end-service that you sell goes through the right channels. And for that we have to think differently about how we develop, what we develop, what we partner in with people, and what do I take back to the tech shop, and, say, develop this myself,” he stated.

In the coming years, Ferreira said BankservAfrica will continue to evolve its security solutions, which he describes as being built from the ground up. “It’s just layer upon layer upon layer. And that’s the only thing that one can do is just to build it out, almost like an onion,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VeeamOn 2017. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn 2017. Neither Veeam Software Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial influence on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE