Wells Fargo and Company Facilities - Assignment Example

Wells Fargo & Company s Company: Wells Fargo & Company 420 Montgomery Street SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94163 United States   +1-612-6671234 (Phone) +1-302-6365454 (Fax) Contact: Kevin A. Rhein, Senior Executive Vice president, Chief Information Officer. (415) 624-8340 Critical infrastructure sector: Banking services Building /facility background Facility Summary The First National Bank, presently Wells Fargo is graced on the side entrance by the pressed copper decorative marquee. The marquee is supported on the each side by two figures. At the feet of the figures is placed cornucopias. A nude female and male figure recline on either side the medallion which is repeated on the two sides of the marquee. The items used for decorations are fruit, wheat, leaves and a griffin. The writing on the medallion reads, “ Systematic Saving is the Key to Success. This standard Italian Renaissance bank building was designed in 1908 by Willis Polk. The Raymond granite entryway is merely the tease to a beautiful and greatly ornamented interior, complete with a carved white marble staircase; benches and counters of carved marble alongside bronze tellers’ windows, and hardware. Formerly the Crocker-Citizens National Bank (later absorbed by the Wells Fargo in the year 1980′s), the building has extensively been remodeled (Hume et al., 2010).It initially housed an 11 story office tower above it and was enclosed in terra cotta. One of its very outstanding features is considered to be the rotunda entrance that is supported by granite pillars, and having coffered ceiling. The building was originally a “combination bank and an office building” it is currently considered to be one of the lavish banking interior within the city. In 1921 the banking hall and the arcaded base were further extended towards the north in an exact copy of the initial design. This extension resulted to a grand interior being even grander. By 1960 the building’s sandstone façade was crumbling. So Milton Pflueger, redesigned the façade for the upper floors. Again it was proposed that a new world headquarters tower alongside galleria further west on Post Street to be initiated, the city provided air space instead of the demolition of the upper floors of the building at 1 Montgomery (Robertson, 1879). The roof of this bank is currently a garden for the Crocker Galleria Shopping Center. There are little bats on both the interior and exterior of the window. Within the frieze are wolves, mountain lions and foxes. The animal sculptures look good but their meaning left to be interpreted by the designers. The steel frame building is architecturally clad in gray granite. Its massive pediment which is 38 feet high is held by six ionic columns. The designing and sculpturing of the building was done cities highly prolific sculptures of that time. At a particular time the front was graced using bronze doors. The doors comprised of the four panels designs that symbolized the “descriptive of the historical succession of the Californian races.” That is; Indian, Spaniard, American and the San Fransciscan. Though, today the doors have been replaced with glass. The inside of the building are eight Tavernelle (spotted or mottled building stone) marble Corinthian Pilasters and high columns of thirty feet. All these support the major cornice, that surmounted by the attic and the coffered ceiling. The building has walls which are not of marble but of Caen stone. There has been a technology transition that has enabled a creation of the financial-services giant among giants: San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Company currently operates approximately more than 9,000 stores (majorly bank locations) and an average of 12,000 ATMs. It has an estimated number of employees of 275,000 and a customer base of about 70 million. The Wells Fargo & company have made the Forbes "Top 20 Biggest World Companies" list and ranks 23rd in collection of revenue among all the global corporations in all industries, in accordance with the data by Fortune. The Wells Fargo & Company building is structured in a unique manner that is largely having ample parking lot sustainable for the busy banking personnel and the bank’s customers, along with fully fitted conferences rooms and classic cafeteria as illustrated in the bank’s building diagram below: Facility Criticality The building is under 24 hour computerized surveillance. The company puts into consideration very specialized and highly designed mobile and modern security surveillance robots, which allows monitoring the real time conditions of the operations in the company’s headquarters through a remote monitoring console. There is also an on process initiation of the showcasing mobile surveillance robots in the form of “e-vigilante” which is being looked up to be the norm as a mechanism to the first line of defense, in provision of the physical security for the corporate section of the banking facility among other areas of equal sensitivity. The company further had unveiled a ground-breaking critical operation app in mission to strengthen the security mechanisms for the building. The company did entered into a strategic alliances with security agencies like the Facewatch, with the view to strengthen the advanced crime reporting mechanism, and also effective connection have been created with the police with the perspective to improve response time and enhanced information quality at the time of reporting crime (Hume et al., 2010). On the critical part of the surveillance is put on full time CCTV surveillance. Besides the CCTV surveillance are the a raft of new security products that include UHD cameras alongside full-HD monitors and 4k cameras that are set to boost four times the pixels and resolution of the full- HD. The video surveillance in various contexts in the building is another showcase of the mechanisms that the Direct IP deploys in an end-to-end-surveillance solution having plug-and-play simplicity. The building is on very critical situation by the virtue of being one of the top five U.S. banks. Its security sensitivity is highly in the aspects of robbery, terrorism, fire among other forms of calamities that can result to loss and destruction of the bank’s assets and facilities. Compromise to the building on the security front would be a back-slide step to the average citizen of the U.S. as the facility provides lots of employment opportunities to the people around and the general public at large. Robbery or fire would result to halt of the bank’s daily operations consequently creating inconvenience to its customers. It is prudent that financial companies choose the way they share the customers’ personal information. Federal law bestows the consumers with the right to limiting some information shared but not all sharing. Federal law further requires the financial institution to tell you as the customer how they share, collect, and protect your personal information. This is why Wells Fargo and company protect the customers’ personal information free from unauthorized use and access, by using security measures that are compliant with federal law. These measures comprise computer safeguards alongside secured buildings and files. Furthermore Wells Fargo Financial National Bank Privacy Policy issues credit cards which are typically industry or merchant branded cards that the consumers have applied for through a service provider or merchant. Facility Background / Services Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) is a diversified nationwide financial services organization with an asset base of $1.5 trillion. It was founded in 1852. Wells Fargo provides investments, insurance, mortgage, banking, and consumer and commercial finance through approximately more than 9,000 locations, online, more than 12,500 ATMs, and mobile devices (Moody & Mays, 2005). Among other services further provided by the company are the express services, providing different forms of services to the pioneers, which include operation of stagecoach lines, safekeeping and transportation of the gold and also delivery of the U.S. mail. Though, the company’s California banking business got separated from the company’s express business in the year 1905. Further as a measure of wartime in 1918, the government of U.S. nationalized the nation’s express companies to constitute a single federal entity. Wells Fargo & Company is a facility in provision of diversified financial services and thus renders services in banking, insurance, leasing, credit cards, investments, mortgage, and consumer finance. The Company operates in providing its services through the Internet, the physical stores, and other distribution channels across the nations of North America and even elsewhere internationally. The one major incidence that ever took place the facility premises in the period of about three years ago is an occurrence of fire outbreak in the underground parking. This happened a year ago when a car that was packed in the underground parking was defective in its engine and leaked some petrol and finally caught fire which its source to-date has been unspecified. The strategically placed fire extinguishing gadgets at the car park helped the two security guards who quelled the fire on realizing it immediately when it just started. Facility Existing Security Infrastructure Online banking security concerns The Wells Fargo and Company online transactions were just comparably safe as those completed by telephone, mail, or in person, though there was of company’s banking system. It was fear that the customers could be vulnerable to internet fraud if they made up their mind to use the means of banking through internet (Moody & Mays, 2005). The number one fear of the customers on the use of internet banking was the “cyber fraud” as was recently discovered in a survey done by Intuit, the producer of home PC software. The Wells Fargo and Company assures the customers of internet banking security as the security that is between the Internet server and the customer’s PC is handled through the security protocol named Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). This SSL security feature was standardized by Netscape, the popular browser producer. The SSL main function is to provide data encryption. Moreover, the SSl provides handshake used in introducing the connection between the Internet server and the customer’s PC. This enabled the information between the database of the banking customer and the Internet banking server tom be provided by the internal banking controls. Lastly, a unique account password/ number combination helps in providing a third layer of protection that gave a guard against direct log-in to the respective customer’s account. References Hume, J. B., Thacker, J. N., Wilson, R. M., Hume, J. B., & Hume, J. B. (2010). Wells, Fargo & Co. stagecoach and train robberies, 1870-1884: The corporate report of 1885 with additional facts about the crimes and their perpetrators. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co. Moody, R., & Mays, V. (2005). Wells Fargo. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Robertson, J. S. (1879). History of Wells, Fargo & co. and the pony express, San Francisco, Sept. 6, 1879. San Francisco?. Read More