You’ve made a smart decision to identify and evaluate us for online business backup and long-term retention for your electronic records.
Here’s why.
In dealing with regulated businesses, Filetwin is confronted with a major and undeniable security imperative. As a result, our mission is to continue providing highly secure remote file storage to small businesses faced with exhaustive compliance regulations pertaining to their electronic records.
If you’re a broker or dealer involved in the exchange of securities, you’re probably familiar with rule 17a-4 paragraph (f). This is the SEC’s existing electronic recordkeeping rule. This rule specifically states, paragraph (f)(2)(ii), what any form of electronic storage media must be able to accomplish.
A. “Preserve the records exclusively in a non-writeable, non-erasable format.”
Filetwin security architecture was specifically designed to clone a file, encrypt that clone and store it away until needed. We cover the WORM (write-once; read-many) stipulation because we encrypt a clone of your file. If someone tries to delete a stored file, that file is moved to a retention bin where the compliance office manager can see that an attempted deletion took place.
B. “Verify automatically the quality and accuracy of the storage media recording process.”
No problems here either. The Filetwin security architecture was also purposefully designed to send automated verification messages upon each action the software performs. Notifications are sent when backups are successful, when backups are missed, when errors took place during the backup and when storage quotas are reaching capacity.
C. “Serialize the original and, if applicable, duplicate units of storage media, and time-date for the required period of retention the information placed on such electronic storage media.”
Again, we’ve got you covered here. Each backup account is created with retention timeframes at the beginning so any and all new files backed up will be retained for that specified period of time…automatically.
D. “Have the capacity to readily download indexes and records preserved on the electronic storage media to any medium acceptable under this paragraph (f) as required by the Commission or the self-regulatory organizations of which the member, broker or dealer is a member.”
Yet again, Filetwin is purposefully designed to permit the authorized user the ability to restore a file to their computer. Once the file is accessible on the PC, the user is free to create whatever medium is requested by the self-regulatory organization.
To the S.E.C., it’s all about data retrieval and “prompt production” capabilities.
With Filetwin you’ll satisfy the intent of the law because the accuracy, accessibility and accurate reproduction of electronically stored records are what our software specializes in.
Finally, we’re more than happy to send a third-party undertaking
Let’s discuss how Filetwin can help you ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your digital files.
Brokers and dealers are required by law to retain electronic files from three (3) to six (6) years; perhaps longer if litigation is involved. Shortly, you’ll be overwhelmed with heavy boxes of old paper files that use up expensive square footage. We all know that 80% of those boxes won’t even get looked through. Be that as it may, you still have to retain those files by law.
Mind you, when it comes to electronic files, most small businesses think buying a one (1) terabyte hard drive solves all their storage problems. In fact, this kind of makeshift strategy opens small businesses to larger problems. For example, what happens if your sole backup and storage hard drive crashes? What happens if through some disaster your equipment is rendered useless? There is no backup for the backup.
Consider this, with hard drives the space is finite whereas with remote secure data storage you can offload your entire storage infrastructure and access it online whenever and wherever you need to. You’ll never again worry about that state of your electronic records.
We’ve outlined the evolution of digital file storage in the image so brokers and dealers could see the logical progression in secure electronic data storage.
So why Filetwin business online backup / offsite storage solutions?
With Filetwin, you get the ability to scale up without doing waves and waves of hardware or software acquisitions, setups, installs and all the risks around doing that. After all, you are in the business of selling and trading securities - - not information technology.
Now brokers and dealers can take advantage of our instant scalability along with our pay-per-use pricing model to handle your growing digital storage needs. You can consume storage at any rate that your particular needs demand. This flexibility far outweighs the perceived advantages of using external hard drives or tape drives and gives you the peace of mind knowing you are satisfying the intent of the law by using online business backup.
During the electronic vaulting of your files, from your server or PC to our data storage facility, our software encrypts your data with 256-bit AES encryption. In addition, all transmissions between your server/PC and our Data Center are transported through a 256-bit encrypted secure connection using an SSL certificate. This combination of data security rigorously protects your data.
To put it in simple terms; although your backup files travel through a public network (the Internet), no one will have any knowledge of what has been exchanged. Keep in mind that even though your data will travel through the Internet, its final destination is our Data Center…and man do we protect our Data Center!
Finally, consider competition for a moment. Imagine how it would look to your customer if you lost all the sensitive transaction records simply because you didn’t back up your digital records. In such a competitive industry, every broker/dealer has to consider how to get a leg-up on their competitor.
Filetwin has developed a special pricing plan for regulated businesses and for $134.95 per month, about the cost of your voice and data plan on an iPhone, you can securely backup your business and satisfy any regulating body by using Filetwin’s business online backup for Invest and Securities Brokers and Dealers.
