Over the last decade, cloud computing has transformed many aspects of how we do business, and nowhere is this more true than in banking and financial services. However, the transition certainly hasn’t been without its challenges, and not every migration to the cloud has been completely successful. With the benefit of hindsight, we can clearly see where missteps and failings occurred in order to better understand how to adapt for the future.

1. For Financial Services
Next-Generation Cloud Infrastructure

2. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Over the last decade, cloud computing has transformed many aspects of how we do business,
and nowhere is this more true than in banking and financial services.
However, the transition certainly hasn’t been without its challenges, and not every migration to
the cloud has been completely successful. With the benefit of hindsight, we can clearly see
where missteps and failings occurred in order to better understand how to adapt for the future.
Increasingly, organizations in the financial sector are looking towards hybrid-cloud and multi-
cloud solutions in order to overcome some of the obstacles endemic to a public-cloud-only
approach. Many of these obstacles have particular relevance to the sector. For example,
compliance and regulatory requirements create a particular burden for companies working
with commercially and personally sensitive data. Creating applications that leverage the
scalability and flexibility of hybrid solutions will play a key role in solving these problems over
the next five years.

3. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
To understand why getting platforming right within this timeframe will be crucial - both
for businesses that are looking to scale as well as those whose priority is customer
retention in the face of challengers and disruptors - I spoke to Dell’s EMEA CTO, Marc
O’Regan, as well as Intel’s worldwide CTO for financial services, Bruno Domingues.
Technology is clearly the driver behind much of the change that is taking place across
the industry. It’s been reported that 88% of financial institutions are expecting to lose
business to “disruptor” fintech companies in the next five years. Agile and digital-native,
these are companies that exist to leverage a specific technological innovation to drive
growth, often through making efficiencies that reduce cost or friction for the customer.
During the same period, 77% of large financial institutions plan to increase their own
focus on customer-facing tech innovation. Rather than growth, their north star is
customer retention.

4. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Cloud platforming can create a level playing field between the snappiest of up-and-
coming hotshots and the grandest of incumbents. The differentiator is often data – while
disruptors will look to leverage external and less-regulated data to create services and
algorithms, incumbents have vast swathes of existing customer and legacy data that
endows a heavier burden. This is the cause of failed cloud initiatives throughout the
sector, O’Regan tells me.
He says “We’ve seen a lot of workloads in the financial industry move onto public cloud
platforms – and then go through a series of repatriations back to on-premises – for a
variety of reasons.”
High among them is undoubtedly the fact that global institutions have to deal with
compliance and regulation across many jurisdictions, often with vastly different
requirements.

5. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Domingues tells me, "The major challenge is that cloud promises this immutable infrastructure
… cloud brings this homogenous architecture and financial institutions often can’t take
advantage of this and at the same time be compliant. What you can do, for example, in the UK
you might not be able to do for Malaysia. Many banks have this global footprint, and this is the
major challenge that they have.“
When mistakes happen and, as observed above, solutions need to be taken down from the
cloud and returned on-premise, this can be hugely costly. Over the last 10 years, the quest for
cost-efficiency has been a huge driver of cloud adoption – which may itself have been a
mistake, Domingues adds.
“Now, financial institutions’ cloud adoption isn’t because they know it’s cheaper – they [adopt
cloud because] they want to focus more on the application, not to be in the data center
business. They shift in order to get more agility, rather than cost-saving."

6. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
This brings us to today – and the growing movement towards hybrid and multi-cloud solutions.
Aside from issues of regulation and compliance, there are other reasons that public cloud
platforms might not be ideal for every financial services workload. For example, latency and
bandwidth issues can mean it’s more effective to keep your fastest-moving and most highly
accessed data closer to hand. And the arrival of edge computing will mean more decisions
have to be taken about what data is sent off-premises and what remains in-house. Multi-cloud
(stacking services across different cloud providers) and hybrid-cloud (where resources can be
accessed via a common toolset whether they are on or off-site) – create flexible environments
where payloads and workloads can be distributed according to their specific requirements.
O’Regan tells me, "Probably the biggest [issue] I'm hearing from banks is sovereignty and
ownership and control of data. I see a lot of banks and insurers looking at how they can exploit
the functions of public cloud platforms and the underlay of private cloud platforms – and
extend that to the edge platforms in the future – but maintain control of their data. It's really
about understanding your data posture, where your data lies, and then being able to tap into
the right resources, on-premise or off-premise.”

7. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
It’s very apparent that cloud, having been around for at least a decade, is a very
different proposition than it was ten or more years ago. Particularly for
organizations dealing with large and complex datasets, there are a lot more choices
that need to be made. Decisions here can have a big impact not just on spending
but also on an organization's capability to be agile and innovate.
Multi and hybrid-cloud ecosystems bring their own set of challenges, of course.
Different platforms and solutions use different pricing structures, which can make it
difficult to forecast costs accurately. You also need to spend time making sure every
element of your system can “play nice” with everything else, which requires technical
and engineering time and resources.

8. © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Perhaps even more crucial is the ability to understand the requirements of all of
your data and workloads at each stage of its lifecycle. Put very simply, you have to
know you'll be using the right cloud at the right time. According to IDC research
commissioned by Dell, workload placement strongly influences cost, efficiency,
performance, and security of projects.
These issues are explored in more depth in a Dell whitepaper on Multi-Cloud
Business Agility & IT Automation which can be read here. Additionally, you can click
here to listen to my entire conversation with Marc O’Regan and Bruno Domingues.
In addition to the challenges and benefits of hybrid and multi-cloud within financial
services, we cover best practice tips for those looking to make the transition from
public cloud, and predictions for the future.

9. Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website
© 2020 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a
strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps
organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and
understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data,
blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent
contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day
Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that
reaches millions of readers.
Visit The
Website

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