Safety and Accessibility in Virtual Safe-Deposit Boxes

By definition, most medical emergencies and natural disasters leave us unprepared. These events are unexpected. Were left scrambling for contact numbers, cell phone chargers and flashlights. The important documentation needed during or after these events can also leave us searching; insurance documents, birth certificates, medical documents and other items can be lost or even inaccessible at the moment you need them most.

"The need for secure, online storage has never been greater," says Ron Daly, president/CEO of DigitalMailer, Herndon, Va. "The huge amount of digital information being generated every day and the number of natural disasters that have occurred in the past few years, are causing consumers to realize they need a truly secure online storage option for their personal documents."

CUES recently partnered with DigitalMailer to promote the firm's My Virtual StrongBox. This online document storage portal takes the traditional safe-deposit box virtual in a secure, accessible environment. Daly believes financial institutions, and particularly credit unions, are well-positioned to be trusted providers of such services.

"Credit unions continue to have a strong reputation among members as highly trustworthy institutions, so who better to keep these documents safe for them?" Daly says.

For credit union members, easy access to a virtual safe-deposit box translates to convenience, and DigitalMailer takes on the important task of keeping those documents safe. My Virtual StrongBox is configured on dedicated storage devices in redundant data centers. To Daly, the importance of dedicated servers versus cloud-based servers is similar to a homeowner using a safe vs. leaving important items in the garage. "You need to think of you and your members' favorite cloud provider as a garage. If you store important documents like tax returns, birth certificates or medical histories in the cloud, it could be a problem waiting to happen," says Daly.

Allowing members to safely store important items online works in the credit union's favor as well. As members invest time to personalize their online portal with new folders and documents, the "stickiness" of the product increases. Wills, birth certificates, insurance policies, deeds, titles and other essential papers aren't something many members would upload to just any old site. Members may think twice about closing online services that hold all their records.

In a joint effort to stress the importance of secure personal document storage, CUES is partnering with DigitalMailer to promote My Virtual StrongBox. As part of the arrangement, CUES will provide the service as a free member benefit to its 7,000 executive and staff members. If those members want to add the service to their credit unions' product suites as a benefit to their own members, CUES will offer it at a discounted price.

Now, CUES members can get a 25MB My Virtual StrongBox account for their own files, absolutely free. The documents are accessible via browser or a custom iPad app. Members can even upload documents with an iPad camera and load them into their own My Virtual StrongBox account. Learn more at cues.org/memberresources.

My Virtual StrongBox is easy to implement without displacing your existing technology. For more information on how to bring My Virtual StrongBox to your credit union, visit cues.org/ My-Virtual-Strongbox.