Banks and financial organizations continue to face myriad challenges in the market, such as data privacy concerns, accessibility to crucial banking data, and demand for better customer services, among many others. And it is increasingly recognized that the cloud is more than a technology; it enables banks and other financial services firms to store data & applications to access advanced software applications via the internet.
Today the leading public cloud providers offer an array of innovative products as a service. They can be accessed on their platforms while helping the banks implement business and operating models to improve revenue generation, increase customer insights, contain costs, and deliver market-relevant products quickly and efficiently while monetizing enterprise data assets.
Thankfully, the solution to these problems is now found in multi-cloud computing: an evolved form of standard cloud computing, the multi-cloud stands to empower banks with a world of benefits such as vendor diversification, substantially improved performance, and avant-garde capabilities.
Anyway, let us now take a closer look at some of the key benefits of the hybrid cloud for the banking and financial services industry:
- Operational consistency: Most companies these days tend to have a complex network of systems, often involving several external cloud providers, that they rely on daily for their operations. Unfortunately, these systems tend to use distinctive operational models, thus really complicating things. A hybrid cloud can also address this challenge by eliminating the need to maintain various processes, new skills, etc.
- Regulatory compliance: Given the nature of the industry, it goes without saying that banking and finance companies are required to ensure stringent compliance with a complex web of regulatory requirements. The multi-cloud setup ensures that highly-sensitive data can continue to be stored on on-premises systems while the rest can be stored securely in the cloud. Furthermore, most modern hybrid cloud providers also offer features to protect data while in transit or at rest.
- Data security: We do not have to tell you just how sensitive the data that banks and other financial services institutions collect can be. This, understandably, puts the focus squarely on safeguarding such data; in this regard, the hybrid cloud approach contributes by ensuring that companies with a similar security setup as the one used for their current on-premises infrastructure and systems. Hybrid cloud setups can also be further fortified via additional security measures such as high availability, disaster recovery, automated data redundancy, etc.
- Adapt: The fact that the banking and financial services industry is currently experiencing high levels of competition is no secret, but it does continue to pose challenges for companies operating in this space. To deal with such cut-throat competition, banking companies must be able to adapt to emerging market trends and demands and quickly at that. To that end, a multi-cloud setup helps by not only facilitating top-notch agility but also providing unified administration, common infrastructure, etc., to simplify the process of dynamically provisioning additional resources to keep pace with the business’s requirements as well as its customers.
It has been for everyone to see that cloud computing has gathered momentum in the past decade, and with good reason too! Yet companies operating in the banking and financial services sector have been on the fence about making the switch because of concerns such as compliance with government regulations, security, etc. However, as the above discussion demonstrates, the multi-cloud approach successfully tends to all these issues while delivering a world of other benefits for banks, etc. So now that you understand the potential of cloud computing in the banking sector, what are you waiting for? Go and start looking for a trusted service provider to help you embrace the cloud for your organization.
