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Banking in the cloud: Accelerating transformation and innovation
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Banking in the cloud: Accelerating transformation and innovation

Staff Writer
Staff Writer
January 31st, 2023
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Banking in the cloud: Acceleratingtransformation and innovation

By Suranjan Chatterjee, global head, Cloud Apps,Microservices & API for Tata Consultancy Services.

Forany modern business operating in the 21st century, a commonly sharedgoal is “digital first” and banks are no different, offering customers moremobile banking solutions and café-style experiences than ever before.

For instance, Barclays UK embarked on a “digital thinking” transformation built on the cloud, considering it a paradigm it believes the rest of the industry should embrace. Essentially, it jumped on the Open Banking reforms that came into force in the UK in January 2018, which required big banks to open their databases and help customers share information on personal banking habits such as spending and payments with other authorized financial service providers. Barclays UK doesn’t consider banking regulation a constraining force, bur rather, urges industry professionals to realize that they and regulators are working toward the shared goal of customer centricity.

But, as progressive banks continue to evolve and consider digital technologies, the banking industry at-large remains cautious about embracing and integrating 21st century cloud platforms, which underpin these offerings. The apprehension from the c-suite oftentimes comes with questions about the readiness of the technology itself and how much reasonable risk the bank is willing to take.

TheCIO, however, can and should play a vital role building the business case forcloud across the c-suite, including the CFO and COO. To get their support, theCIO should communicate the value in terms of business outcomes, which go beyonddollars and cents. These outcomes should include the impact on key constituents– customers and their satisfaction, partners and employees themselves.

Unlocking the power of cloud

Oncethere is buy-in from the c-suite to proceed, the next step is communicating thevalue of cloud to those who hold the most likelihood of being directly impactedby this change. But to customers, partners and employees, cloud needs to besynonymous with innovation and security. Customers need to be ensured theirassets will be available and protected, the broader ecosystem of business partnerswho are essential to the bank’s continued success need to be ensured theirjoint offerings are air-tight, and finally, bank employees and executives needto see efficiencies in processes be to feel rewarded, do higher value work anddeliver better results to investors and to the communities they serve.

The good news is during the last 18 months, the security and reliability capabilities of the best cloud providers have increased, reaching new levels of data protection that meet the new rigorous regulatory requirements of the banking world.

So,how are some of the world’s most progressive banks handling the move to cloud?

ABN AMRO created a secure portal to allowcustomers to access accounts and services through their smart devices, alsoenabling various third parties to connect through secure applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs). A variety of new business offerings are beingcreated between third-party fintech and banks and unsurprisingly, some of thesenew digital offerings are growing faster than traditional banking businessofferings.

Andit isn’t just customers who stand to gain. ABN AMRO is delivering advantages toits employees as well.  ABN AMRO, likesome large banks, is experimenting with ArtificialIntelligence and Machine Learning to relieve bank employees of some ofthe time-consuming and highly monotonous tasks they often encounter, to focusmore on creative work and customer engagement. Intelligent assistants are alsohelping staff conduct sophisticated risk analysis. Major banking institutionslike ABN AMRO in Europe serve as testament that banks who embark on their cloudjourney can see lower costs, faster innovation, and improved customersatisfaction.

So,where to next?

Thereare various business functions will benefit from the speed, efficiency, flexibility,and continuous innovation of the cloud more than others. Additionally, avariety of processes will become more efficient, such as customer-facingapplications. For other applications, the deciding factor will be if themigration will save money, create additional value, or both.

CIOs need to help c-suite executives seethe cloud as indispensable to the future of the brand. It is the key todelivering the revolutionary experiences that today’s stakeholders expect andtomorrow’s will demand.

SuranjanChatterjee is global head, Cloud Apps, Microservices & API for TataConsultancy Services.

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