Why the Finance Industry Will Be Shifting to the Public Cloud in 2020

While the Cloud is being used widely nowadays, its full capabilities are yet to be unleashed. People and organizations gingerly tread on new technologies, as adaptation can bring about drastic changes. Still, companies have been using the cloud more and more. According to Thomson Reuters, the financial industry increased its investments in IT to 47% in 2019, with 90% focusing on Cloud technologies. This increase in investment is largely due to the fact that the financial sector needs a drastic change toward digital transformation—and the Cloud, as an enabler, is their best option to successfully accomplish this goal.

While the use of the Cloud may not be new, financial companies are using private Cloud services for the most part because of their intrinsic nature to protect their clients. With in-house or private servers dedicated to their processes, banks feel more secure as they have more control over the technology. Meanwhile, their use of the public Cloud, according to Price Waterhouse Cooper, has been focused on customer relationship management, human resources, and financial accounting: all of which are considered as non-core processes.

Shedding inefficiencies

However, with the advent of new breakthroughs in the public Cloud space, some financial companies are realizing the power of the technology that could give them an advantage over their peers. Because the public Cloud is shared with other people and organizations, instead of being housed within the company, companies can free itself of related inefficiencies and burdening costs, including the following:

• Decreased maintenance responsibility – while companies dedicate company resources to maintain a private Cloud infrastructure, public Cloud providers can do the maintenance for them. By shifting hardware maintenance responsibility, IT departments in financial companies can increase their efficiency and focus on more important operations
• Cutting-edge technology – Infrastructure maintenance goes beyond just making sure that the hardware runs smoothly. It also means bringing in the latest technology to keep servers up to speed with the increasing demands piled on it. This is both expensive and time-consuming when implemented. Through the public Cloud, financial companies don’t need to worry about the constant upgrades.
• Safety in redundancy – It is common knowledge that servers do go down at one point or another. This means that the information on downed servers cannot be accessed, which can be bad for businesses needing them as soon as possible. Public Cloud providers have redundancies for such occasions that can help make sure that your data is available even when your main server is down.

To sum up, the public Cloud service can solve many problems in cost, efficiency, and productivity that many companies have to constantly battle with. This can lead to reductions in capital and operating expenses that they can better put elsewhere.

However, it is worth noting that the public Cloud isn’t the magic pill that some people are looking for. Like any technology and service, it has its limitations as well, one of them being control. Once companies use the public Cloud, they still have to do their fair share of monitoring despite the protective services that the provider gives. There will be a trade-off between infrastructure control and the benefits of the public Cloud that companies need to be aware of. This can be lessened by developing a close relationship with the company provider to make sure the company’s requirements are met.

Considerations

Compliance issues should also be taken into consideration. For one thing, the financial industry is under a large number of legal and industry rules and regulations because of the sensitive information they carry. With compliance as a great barrier, companies must ensure that their providers can comply with these restrictions. Thankfully, many Cloud providers who see the financial industry as potential clients are shifting toward securing compliance so that they can give the best service to their clients.

A hybrid of private-public Cloud solutions has helped companies drive innovation with capabilities that include blockchain, artificial intelligence, data analysis, and digital currencies. Their partner provider helps in their growth by providing stability and security.

Cloud technology is in continuous development, but at its current trajectory, public Cloud services are becoming more attractive to companies. The financial industry will find it particularly relevant for their non-core services.