Case Study

How StoneX meets compliance & secures their BYOD workforce with Blue Border

“Being in the financial services industry, we are a heavily regulated entity. We have regulators from across the country, across the globe, that pay very close attention to the types of things that we do. Products like Venn are helping us to meet those obligations that we have for those regulators, and which are ultimately helping to protect our customers. We needed to go with somebody that really understood the space, had solutions that were ready to go now, and let us focus on other challenges that we can’t get that kind of help in. We looked at our options and ultimately decided that Venn was really the path forward for us.”

Troy Mattern
Chief Information Security Officer, StoneX

Company Overview

StoneX Group Inc. (Nasdaq: SNEX) is a Fortune 50 financial services firm that connects more than 54,000 institutional, commercial, and payments clients and 260,000 self-directed clients to the global markets. Founded in 1924 and headquartered in New York, StoneX offers clearing, execution, digital trading platforms, and market expertise across commodities, securities, FX, and derivatives from over 70 offices on six continents. 

Business Challenges

Limited visibility into advisor devices
StoneX Wealth Management’s independent reps connect from computers StoneX doesn’t own or manage. The security team needed a clear picture of which devices were reaching company systems and apply DLP to that access to mitigate risk.

Meeting regulatory obligations on unmanaged computers
Financial regulators watch closely how firms like StoneX protect customer data. StoneX had to demonstrate strong controls over company work, even when that work happened on a personal laptop.

Protecting privacy without taking over personal machines
Mobile device management would have meant taking control of computers that belong to the reps. StoneX ruled it out over privacy concerns. Many reps also aren’t technology savvy, so any solution had to be simple to roll out.

Why Venn

StoneX evaluated the options on the market, including competitors, and worked through the decision with its engineering team. Troy framed it around one question: what work can only his team do? For everything else, StoneX wanted a partner that already understood the space. Venn stood out for five reasons:

  • A clear separation between work and personal. Blue Border creates a company-controlled secure enclave on the rep’s own computer, so personal activity never touches business work, and vice versa.
  • Privacy without device takeover. Unlike MDM, Blue Border secures company work without fully managing the endpoint.
  • Security beyond the browser. Unlike enterprise browsers, Blue Border protects both desktop and browser applications, as all users required support for desktop and native apps.
  • A solution ready to go now. No long build or custom engineering project before reps could be protected.
  • Simple rollout for non-technical users. A lightweight agent that reps install themselves.

Business Value Delivered

  1. Visibility into the remote, BYOD workforce: StoneX now knows which devices its independent reps are working from, and how the risk on each is being managed. As Troy put it, that understanding is what lets the security team be effective as the device landscape keeps shifting.
  2. Support for regulatory obligations: Blue Border helps StoneX meet the obligations it has to regulators worldwide, and in turn protect its customers’ investments.
  3. Privacy that reps can see: The blue line around work applications shows reps exactly where company work begins and ends. That visible boundary gives them confidence that StoneX isn’t reaching into their personal activity.
  4. Easy rollout for non-technical users: Reps install a simple agent, and Blue Border takes over from there. For a workforce that isn’t technology savvy, that simplicity has made adoption easy.
  5. A true engineering partnership: Venn’s team helped StoneX understand problems in this space it hadn’t considered before. Venn engineers worked alongside StoneX on creative solutions, building trust and confidence along the way.

Results

  • Visibility into the personal and third-party devices independent reps work from
  • Support for regulatory obligations across global financial regulators.
  • Company work isolated from personal use, with no MDM takeover of rep-owned computers
  • Simple, self-installed rollout for non-technical users
  • A trusted partner for ongoing engineering challenges

Customer Perspective

“We didn’t want to do mobile device management, where we’re trying to take over their machine, because it’s personal. Venn gives a little more comfortability. It has that nice border, so they understand that this is the line of separation. If I’m doing personal things on the machine, it’s not interacting with the business stuff, and vice versa. I think Blue Border will change things, with the sunsetting of VDI and the move to this newer, more modern world of working from BYOD devices.”


Frank McGovern

Chief Security Architect, StoneX

Conclusion

For regulated firms that depend on independent advisors and contractors, the choice has long been between flexibility and control. Ship company hardware, stand up VDI, or take over personal machines with MDM. StoneX found a better path.

With Blue Border, StoneX protects company data and applications on the computers its reps already own, inside a company-controlled secure enclave that keeps work and personal activity separate. The security team gets the visibility and control regulators expect. Reps keep their privacy and an easy way to get to work.

As work keeps moving beyond the office and off company-issued hardware, Blue Border gives StoneX a device-agnostic way to secure it, without VDI and without fully managing the endpoint.

Book a demo to see how Blue Border secures your remote and contractor workforce.