I doubt there are many people who keep cash under the mattress these days.

And if you are reading Guam Business Magazine, I assume you are even less likely to do so.

Most — if not all of us — are now using some form of digital banking and commerce. 

ATMs were an early form of electronic banking available 24/7 that prepared us for more sophisticated interaction from our devices.

But with a rapidly changing landscape in how businesses and individuals manage their finances and investments — and multiple ways to do both — it’s essential to sleep easy on your mattress while your money and investments are tucked in and resting snugly elsewhere. 

So, while fintech offers easy tools to manage transactions via your devices, it’s even more essential to know that wherever you are parking your pennies what stands between them and “bad actors” is an impregnable security wall.

In the islands it’s easy to get to know the people that manage your money and your investments. 

You run into them frequently. And if you are a valued or potential client, it’s also easy to reach them if you need to. Customer service is something we do really well in the islands. And (if you are reading us outside of the islands, take my word for it) there are enough venerable financial institutions in the Pacific that if you are not feeling valued or well-served, you can take your assets elsewhere. 

For those of us who do business in multiple locations, geographical distance is no barrier to commerce, thanks to digital services.  But trust in digital services is in decline. 

That may be because 19% or one in five consumers have been informed in the past year that their personal data has been compromised. More than one in 10 consumers have had credit card information or financial data stolen.

That’s according to the Thales 2025 Digital Trust Index, which was released in March. 

Thales surveyed more than 14,000 consumers across 14 different countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

The good news is that banking remains the number one trusted market sector.

However, consumers are not necessarily happy with the digital experience. 

Three-quarters of consumers, or 75%, indicated that passwordless authentication is important to them, versus 72% last year. 

And 64% of consumers indicated that their confidence in a brand would significantly increase if the brand adopted emerging or advanced technologies that improve security and data protection.

Thales said in its Digital Trust Index that customers don’t like having to create long and/or complicated passwords or reset passwords. 

How true.

If you’ve ever experienced passwordless authentication, you’ll know how personalized it is. And equally how fast and fabulous it can be to verify your identity and complete a transaction in seconds. 

Aside from anything else — like peace of mind, when you are dealing with timely closures that depend on deadlines or exchange rates, time is money. 

Maureen N. Maratita is the publisher at Glimpses Media. Glimpses Media includes the Marianas Business Journal, Guam Business Magazine, The Guam Guide, Wave 105.1 FM, Power98 and Route 99.