You may have wondered, “Should my web developer host my website?”

If you search online, you’ll discover the popular opinion is you don’t want your bank web designer or developer to host your website. This argument stems from the fact that most digital marketing companies that offer web development, design, and hosting services are actually just middlemen. They design and develop your bank website in-house, but then they outsource hosting to a third-party provider.

Financial institutions can’t risk partnering with a website design and development company that isn’t fully in charge of hosting your site. In this blog, we’ll explore the reasons why people advise against trusting your design and development company with hosting your bank website and dispel the myth that working with an all-inclusive website company is unwise.

 

Reason #1: You Can’t Communicate With the Web Hosting Service

When your bank website developer or design company contracts with a third-party hosting service, they have little to no control over hosting issues. Your project manager or client representative may not even be aware of any problems until either you or the hosting service alerts him.

If your website goes down, you must rely on your contact to communicate with the hosting provider rather than being able to address the problem directly, wasting precious time. For a financial institution, a non-functioning website is unacceptable and can break your customers’ trust in you.

 

Reason #2: You Won’t Own Your Website

In addition to not being in control of communication with the third-party hosting service, you might also be signing over ownership of your website. Your web developer or designer has no reason to disclose the name of the hosting provider unless you ask or it’s stated in your contract.

If you decide to cut ties with the individual or company or if your developer or designer goes out of business without notice, you could have trouble regaining control of your website. You could lose all your files and content or much worse — your web developer or designer might hold your domain name or SSL certification hostage if neither is registered under your bank or credit union name.

 

Reason #3: Your Website Is Susceptible to Malicious Attacks

Another issue with working with a marketing company that hosts your bank website with a third-party provider is that your website might be hosted in a shared container with hundreds of other websites. This is a common tactic web developers and designers use to save money on hosting services while profiting from their clients.

Operating your bank website from a shared host is a huge regulatory concern because of the privacy and security risks involved. Anyone with login information to the back-end of a website hosted in that shared container has access to all the other websites. Once in, someone can read, modify, delete, and download files or databases. A cyberthief can easily steal your customers’ account numbers, usernames, passwords, and personal information.

 

Final Words

For most industries, these are all valid reasons why you shouldn’t agree to your web developer or designer hosting your site. However, financial institutions have special needs and requirements. They can benefit from by partnering with a company that offers an all-inclusive package of website design, development, and hosting, especially one like BankSITE® Services, which has a two-decade-long history of working with community banks and credit unions.

  • Myth Buster #1: We own and manage our primary data center along with a second disaster recovery data center. Our proprietary BankSITE® Security Monitor works 24/7, alerting you of any connectivity issues, abnormal changes to your bank website pages, domain name registration and DNS record modifications, and possible security breaches or malware attacks. If something goes awry, we’ll often know about it and repair it before you notice. Or, if you suspect your bank website is malfunctioning, you can contact us directly so we can resolve your problem as quickly as possible.
  • Myth Buster #2: You retain full ownership of your data and content, and you can backup or access your information anytime. We’re always here to assist you with any design or development needs as well. However, with our BankSITE® Builder content management system, you can easily revise and update your website yourself.
  • Myth Buster #3: We host and maintain our clients’ websites on two clusters of cloud servers inside their own individual virtual private server container. Only you have access to your website and your data. This also gives us the capability to instantly move your website from one server to another with no downtime. We perform daily malware scanning and utilize third-party vulnerability assessments to safeguard your website.

We hope we’ve dispelled the myth that web developers and designers are web hosting resellers. If you’re apprehensive about trusting one company to handle all your bank website needs, let us convince you that it’s possible!