How the public cloud benefits banking and business

Cloud technology enables organizations to easily, securely and cost-effectively offer next-gen solutions

As the shift to open banking and omnichannel commerce continues to accelerate, many financial institutions and merchants are relying on fintech partnerships to deliver next-gen solutions. Those solutions are generally provided through a cloud-based approach, which can enable greater innovation at an accelerated pace.

According to a 2022 Microsoft survey of IT decision makers, 82% of organizations with a cloud migration and modernization strategy say moving to the cloud is a stepping-stone to enabling digital transformation.

Cloud technology allows organizations to easily, securely and cost-effectively provide next-gen solutions to their customers. The cloud can represent greater resilience, business agility, automation and security.

In the past, organizations often turned to a private cloud model, which is completely controlled within a single organization. A public cloud is a shared but secure cloud offering provided by a third-party organization. 

Why should you move to a public cloud?

It’s flexible. By choosing a fintech partner with a public cloud strategy, financial institutions and businesses can readily access multiple cloud providers and operating models through a single platform. This enables additional scale, distribution, connectivity and accessibility as organizations need it.

It’s faster. A public cloud strategy accelerates the delivery of market-leading innovation – provided by the fintech partner – and enables financial institutions and businesses to speed the launch of innovative solutions to their customers. Solutions can be launched in days rather than weeks or months.

It’s technology-focused. Most institutions are already on a cloud journey with multiple SaaS products. Having one fintech provider enables organizations to concentrate on growing their business and serving their customers rather than deploying technology and dealing with multiple layers of vendors.

It’s secure, resilient and scalable. With the right partner, the public cloud is enabled across the fintech’s application development portfolio in a secure, scalable and cost-effective way. With cloud, capacity can easily scale up or down, so organizations can rest assured an unexpected spike in their business will be supported. Cloud environments enable enhanced resiliency since they are more fault tolerant and facilitate faster recovery in the event something does go wrong.

It’s integrated. By using one fintech partner committed to a public cloud approach and standardized app deployment, everything works together seamlessly – within processes, between solutions and with any other technologies organizations choose to use.

It’s insightful. Moving to a public cloud accessing data from across the organization on a single platform can provide the opportunity for data analytics and AI-driven insights.

 

How do you get started?

Moving to the cloud is not a one-time event; it’s iterative and continuous. Figure out what you want to achieve, then start small for lower risk.

Here are some steps to starting your cloud initiative:

1. Align: Build a joint plan between IT and the business 12 to 18 months before you plan to launch
   
   
2. Evaluate: Assess your current infrastructure and needs
    
3. Define: Establish the target you want to achieve
   
   
4. Start small: Learn the ropes in a low risk way
   
   
5. Look for patterns: Create repeatability to achieve scale and acceleration

A good example comes from Forcht Bank, who partnered with Fiserv to enhance cybersecurity – and in the process won a Celent Model Bank Award for reducing risk. The new cybersecurity platform leverages managed services by Fiserv and uses Microsoft security tools, Qualys and other systems on a hybrid cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure. Forcht Bank rose from the 50th percentile of peer banks to the 95th percentile for vulnerability management while becoming more cost effective.

 

The Fiserv cloud approach

At Fiserv, the convergence of rapidly scalable infrastructure, cloud-native applications, expansive data feeds and an interconnected yet open ecosystem became a primary driver to accelerate innovation for our clients.

We are bringing together the expertise of our development teams with the proven scale and technology of major cloud providers to enhance next-gen platforms, such as Finxact, DNA, Carat, Optis^SM and digital banking capabilities. Fiserv chose a multi-cloud approach to propel implementation velocity and open data accessibility – meeting client needs for rapid digital deployment and greater insights.

In reality, the public cloud is not just a technology plan for financial institutions and businesses. It’s part of their strategy for success – particularly when it comes to enabling digital transformation, which is table stakes for most financial services and merchant organizations.