If there is one sector where the cloud could make a quick difference, it is without a doubt financial. Because in the meantime we have all largely switched to digital money and digital transactions. In a financial world where services are evolving at a rapid pace, with constantly changing consumer expectations, with the advent of new technologies such as blockchain or crowdsourcing and the impact of increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, agility and scalability are crucial. Two properties that connect you directly to the cloud.
Yet the industry is only moving very cautiously towards that cloud. The barriers to adoption vary from the complexity of legacy systems (how do you get them in the cloud?) to gaps in trust and skills, the uncertainty about the impact of existing but also future regulations and the fragmentation in markets such as Europe. In order to get a better idea of ​​what exactly is standing in the way of adaptation, Google has asked Harris Poll to survey a large group of leaders from that sector worldwide.
Five points for attention emerged from this study:
- A vast majority of financial service providers already use some form of public cloud;
- The financial services companies in North America are proving to be leaders in cloud adoption;
- However, most use is still in the systems in the periphery. Most core functionalities still need to be migrated, but the growing existing use of the cloud is paving the way here;
- This translates into a very strong positive perception of the potential for cloud technology to aid business and regulatory compliance;
- But certain regulatory challenges, including the complexity of compliance with those rules and the fragmentation of those regulations, pose barriers to rapid wider adoption;
The starting point at Google is that investments must be made in consultation with the regulators to answer and address their concerns so that the migration of the core platforms can also be realized. If you to dive deep into the research, find the survey and infographic here.Â
… but the tools are available
As mentioned above, nearly 90% of financial services CIOs and SVPs worldwide believe that improving their application portfolio is the key to improving customer experience and increasing revenue. The problem? Replacing legacy systems with cloud-based SaaS business software is a huge, time and resource intensive process.
IDG’s recently completed white paper, Financial Services Spotlight: Elevating agility and security in the cloud, highlights an alternative to the all-or-nothing approach to replatforming: “lift and shift” on-premises applications and workloads to the cloud without rewriting them. This way you retain the familiar architecture of your organization, but you give it the scalability and advanced technology of a modern cloud environment. And that’s exactly what Google Cloud VMware Engine can deliver for financial services. Google wrote some interesting blogs on the matter:Â
- Google Cloud study: Cloud adoption increasing in financial services, but regulatory hurdles remain.Â
- Google blog: 8 ways Google Cloud elevates agility and security for financial services
Do you need a sparring partner on how Google can help your organisation? Just let us know, we are here to help!
