Webster Bank reduces service desk password requests by 70% in just a few months with Avatier

Founded in 1935 by Harold Webster Smith, Webster Bank has grown from its humble roots to become the leading regional bank in the Northeast. They have expanded from Connecticut into neighboring states, and now offer a full range of financial services to their customers. 3,400 employees strong and growing, Webster Bank is in a position where it needs to reduce password requests to its service desk. It is also one of many banks that faces increasingly-strict government regulations when it comes to protecting sensitive identity information. In order to address these goals, Andrew Vollaro, VP, IT Service Delivery and Operations, knew from previous experience that he could turn to Avatier. He started by purchasing Avatier’s Password Station module with the aim of reducing password reset requests to their service desk. The stringent privacy regulations that the bank faces provided a few roadblocks that needed to be worked around, but despite those obstacles installation was completed in just one week. Although Password Station has only been implemented on a voluntary enrollment basis, service desk call volume for password requests is down 70% since July of 2016. That number will continue to drop as more employees migrate to the new system. The simple, successful implementation of Password Station has encouraged Mr. Vollaro to turn to Avatier’s other products to address other information security needs that Webster Bank faces now and in the future.

Implementing Avatier’s Password Station was the first step in addressing the problems that he intended to combat. Mr. Vollaro was pleased with the results: “We reduced our call volume by a pretty significant amount by implementing this tool, and we were able to bring it in pretty quickly.” Moving forward, Mr. Vollaro knows that he still has work to do. There has been a recent push for regulations that will require lenders to do more to protect their customers’ data and to create robust systems that will be able to operate in the face of cyber-attacks. Webster Bank is looking into utilizing Avatier, whose products exceed military-standard security protocols, to help achieve this goal. Their first step is to potentially add MFA Biometrics technology in order to enhance their authentication for Password Station. “We have seen a significant drop in Active Directory password requests,” Mr. Vollaro comments. The simple installation of Avatier’s Password Station and the immediate results that Webster Bank has seen from its implementation have encouraged Mr. Vollaro’s department to turn to Avatier in order to address other challenges. “It’s the ease of installation, the ease of use, and the user interface which made the difference.”