Opinion

Why the Cloud Should Be the Bank’s Priority

By
Vishal Dalal
By
A hot air balloon shaped like a pig in the clouds

In today's fast-changing financial landscape, banks are at a crossroads: do they keep doing what they’ve always done, or do they take the leap with banking in the cloud? Not every bank will be ready to do so. But there are a myriad of reasons why every bank should be considering it, not least for the cost savings, innovation, and diversification of their talent pool.

1.Core Banking Cost Savings: A Smart Move

Banking has traditionally been considered expensive: hefty on-premise infrastructure and system running, which only a small handful of people can actually manage, leaving little room for innovation. Even simple changes can take months to implement, sometimes with disastrous effects.

Banking in the cloud, however, offers a way out. By shifting core banking operations to the cloud, banks can significantly cut down on infrastructure expenses. No more need for costly data centres or server upkeep; the days when 24-hour monitoring was required to ensure the systems kept running are, to the relief of many, over.

Cloud services are flexible and cost-effective because you only pay for what you use, thus drastically reducing the costs of overprovisioning. Banks can scale their operations as needed, bringing more agility into their ways of adjusting to market changes and customer demands.

2. The Marketplace: Where Innovation Thrives

Banking in the cloud has become a driver for innovation in the industry. Traditional models require banks to handle every aspect of their operations, from risk assessment to customer experience to data analytics, which is no longer sustainable in the digital era. Banking in the cloud allows for unlimited possibilities of borrowing from the cloud ecosystem of specialised services to enhance core offerings in the marketplace.

Working within the same ecosystem means everyone speaks the same language of APIs. There’s no need to bring anything “up to speed” or “up to code” because it is a simple matter of plug and play. It allows for faster development and deployment of new products and services, converting months to weeks or even days.

The marketplace is an incredible space for finding the best and most cutting-edge services. Partnerships and alliances are formed that once would have seemed impossible. Banking in the cloud means banks are able to easily integrate with major global and local players, fulfilling their direct requirements.

3. Talent Diversity: A Fresh Perspective

“Moving to the cloud” has never been more exciting. As alluded to above, innovation is among the main drivers for talent flocking to the cloud. There’s space for growth, change, and, most pertinently, collaboration. It’s no surprise that talent is flocking to the flexibility that working in the cloud has to offer.

For banks to be able to attract the right kind of talent to their institutions, moving to the cloud becomes imperative. Talent, especially in tech, wants to be where the action is, which is in the cloud for the foreseeable future.
Banking in the Cloud's Bright Horizon

Banking in the cloud is no longer a far-fetched idea that hasn’t provided concrete results. Across the world, from Asia to Europe to Latin America and even to the US, we are seeing the implementation of banking in the cloud yielding incredible results. The benefits of cloud adoption, from cost savings to the marketplace to talent attraction, are compelling in their own right. By prioritising the cloud, banks can stay current and competitive while delivering better value to more customers.

The journey to cloud-based banking is, of course, not always linear and straightforward. But in addition to saving costs and fostering innovation, it sets them up well for the future.

Written by
Vishal Dalal
Written by
January 3, 2024