DigitalMailer Launches My Virtual StrongBox

DigitalMailer, Inc. announced its Software-as-a-Service offering, My Virtual StrongBox.

With the launch, DigitalMailer becomes an electronic document provider to allow customers to place documents into their financial partner’s online document library.

My Virtual StrongBox lets customers load important documents such as wills, insurance documents and other important papers into their financial advisors’ protected document library using the same secure document technology financial institutions now use to deliver online statements, notices and tax documents.

My Virtual StrongBox is similar to physical safe deposit boxes in bank vaults, but with online capabilities that include accessible permission-based retrieval.

The product is equipped with initial strongbox storage sizes designed for individual and small businesses, but customers can purchase additional space if needed. Users can customize folders to aggregate documents and share them as necessary. For example, a customer can retrieve a copy of a will via a smartphone while sitting at an attorney’s office.

Northwest Federal Credit Union, located in Herndon, VA, is the first financial institution to offer My Virtual StrongBox to its customers. The 110,000-member credit union has contracted for the service and has set up virtual strongboxes for all of its 68,000 electronic statement users.

"Our goal is to become our members’ lifetime financial partner, and we believe that offering them My Virtual StrongBox provides a unique value-add service," said Greg Gibson, COO at Northwest Federal. "Helping our members organize their financial lives all under one roof is exactly what a financial partner should do."

According to Ron Daly, president and CEO of DigitalMailer, people’s personal financial lives grow more complicated as we get older.

"Anyone who has been named an executor for a family member or friend knows what a nightmare it can be to locate the entire financial picture of a loved one," he said. "My Virtual StrongBox solves this by allowing individuals to organize and securely store their financial information in one place for easy online access, updating and retrieval."

Technology companies serving the online channel can deploy My Virtual StrongBox as part of their branded service offerings.

Daly calls it a "sticky product that adds value to trusted financial advisors when tied to customers’ checking accounts, online banking, investment relationships and personal financial management tools."

DigitalMailer designed the Software-as-a-Service as a depository, rather than a temporary storage drop or transfer station. It’s available as a stand-alone product or integrated into DigitalMailer’s Electronic Document Management System. The service can be private-labeled and is adaptable to financial institutions, insurance companies, and wealth management and financial services firms.

Features

• Customers can place electronic copies of documents in their virtual strongboxes that aren’t normally kept in one place. These might include wills, insurance policies, photographs required for insurance claims and important real estate and investment documents.
• Businesses and consumers can store digitized documents using a file management system that offers built-in sorting and sharing capabilities. Items are retrievable via the Internet 24/7. In addition, mobile applications will be available in second-quarter 2012.
• The service is deployable across multiple access points, including direct login by consumers, online banking, and other secure, single sign-on applications.
• My Virtual StrongBox web services create seamless integration with other applications, such as online banking, personal financial management tools and wealth management systems.
• The service is configured on dedicated, redundant storage devices in datacenters controlled by DigitalMailer, rather than using the traditional cloud-based model. These datacenters have SAS 70 Type II certification, 24-hour monitoring to assure safety and continuous backup in case of power outages or physical disasters.