The Safe4 Conference 2016, held at Dartmouth House in London in November, proved to be a highly successful day. A very high-profile UK public service client, a leading international bank, an organisation specialising in training and talent development, and a membership organisation serving the will-writing and inheritance planning profession all gave presentations at the event, and illustrated the wide breadth of customer applications that Safe4 is now being used to support.

Of particular interest was the presentation by Dave Saunders of Investec, who travelled from Sandton in Johannesburg to attend the event. Widely respected as one of the financial sector’s most successful and efficient specialist bankers, Investec are deploying Safe4 as a facility within their online banking service. The Digital Briefcase – as it is known – is available to all Investec clients for storing important personal information in a highly secure vault. To underline the commitment of Investec to offer their clients the most secure and ethical service possible, Investec also plan to use the Safe4 vault to handle documents being delivered to clients. This will allow the bank to cut down on the use of email as a tool for client communication – email phishing has become a modern-day scourge, with fraudsters sending messages purporting to represent banks asking recipients to click a link to verify their account details, only to cause malware or ransomware to be downloaded on to their computer.

Safe4 was integrated into the Investec online banking service by their digital services team during 2015 and 2016, using the Safe4 API. This was modified and enhanced by Safe4 to meet the requirements of Investec, and currently supports approximately 95% of the functionality offered by Safe4.

Further developments from Investec are in the pipeline. Their mobile app makes highly inventive use of the Safe4 service, and presents the service through an interface that differentiates Investec from their competitors.

The Safe4 team that led the collaboration with Investec was based in Johannesburg and the UK, emphasising the benefits of international cooperation.