the future of cloud computing for banking industry - … · the future of cloud computing for...

The Future of Cloud Computing forBanking Industry

Meshal Alabdulwahab

Cloud computing, being a need of today has become more and more popular because of the fact that itdeploys groups of remote servers and those networks which allow centralized storage and online access tocomputers, laptops, and other such devices.

Banking industry trends

With the passage of time, the trends being used bythe banks have also gone old and there is more riskof operations. To meet the new standards ofbanking, a bank must be up to the mark by usingdifferent IT techniques such as in the past, banksoften used Apple Wallet, PayPal and GoogleWallet but now these methods are not fulfilling therequirements of the banks. With the increasingburden of banking and transaction volumes, theseold methods are not enough to serve, although,they have served well in the past but now theyneed to be changed according to the needs of thebanking industry.

Banking is not an exception in case of cloudtechnology, in fact, it is being used in many otherindustries as well. This cloud technology helpsbanking in many different ways such as itenhances the new customer experiences, alsoallows an effective collaboration and also increasesthe speed to market your products and offers.

This cloud technology is a source of security aswell in the banking industry. According to asurvey from IBM in 2010, about sixty percent of theCIO’s plan to use the cloud technology ascompared to thirty three percent two years back.Whenever you need to update or develop the

bank’s cloud infrastructure or its strategy, alwayskeep in mind the aspect of security.

Banks can take the advantage of cloud computingwhenever there is some kind of economicuncertainty and demanding customers. They canalign the services needed for the increasingnumber of customers and can develop a morestrong network of customer relationship. Banksneed to opt for those ways which reduces the risksand enhance their quality either by improving thecustomer service or by identifying and eliminatingthe cost of complexity in their investments.

The banking is growing massively these days.According to an estimate, by 2015, USD 14 trillionwill be emerged in the financial market and thiswill increase three times more till 2020. And about2.7 million people of the developing countries willnot be able to access the financial services. Cloudcomputing can help the fast growing network ofbanking industry by automatically setting up highgoals to achieve the modernized standards ofbanking and its increasing demand of services. Itcan configure and reconfigure all the technologiesvirtually.

It enables the bank to deploy those services andnetworks which cost them less and theirproductivity is more than the previous methods.Cloud computing gives a boost to the IT resources

International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 6, Issue 3, March-2015 ISSN 2229-5518

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and provide a more friendly and innovativeframework of the services to create a friendlyenvironment between the banking services and theclients. Cloud technology covers all these aspectsof IT in the banking industry.

Building customer relationship

Nowadays, banks are mostly working onimproving the quality of the customer relationship.According to a survey, most of the bankers saidthat for the next five years, banks are only focusingon the techniques for providing the bestenvironment for the customer. But with the use ofcloud computing, the banks are also going to showa consistency with the customers like we see oftenin different retailers and airlines whichcontinuously deal with their customers. Cloudtechnology can help banks introduce a moreoptimal solution of managing services and cancollect data through various multi channels andcan make betterment in not only the transactionalprocess but also directly with the customers.

Some benefits that cloud computing can offer invarious banking IT areas

Analytics Integrating customer dataacross banking platforms toenable near real-time insights

Businessservices

Extending and incorporatingthird-party services to extendthe banking ecosystem tosupport customer’s everydaybuying and paying needs

Desktops anddevices

Deploying a private cloud tocentralize management ofdesktops allows for greaterremote flexibility withoutsacrificing control, whileenabling banking employees toaccess the applications and data

they need

Managingbackups

Backing up a bank’s criticalbusiness data to ensure that inthe event of a disaster a bankcan bounce back rapidly andeasily

Security Enforcing active security andendpoint management toensure corporate governanceand banking IT policies aremaintained

Collaboration Enabling employees acrossdistributed branches to accesstrading and banking systemsthrough a security-rich cloudinfrastructure

Most of the banks are now using mixed techniquesby mobile-apps and other social applications just toimprove the customer service whereas the cloudtechnology just not only gather the information ofthe customer but also keep them bounded with allthe offerings of the bank. Instead of going at thetop level of mass marketing, your cloudtechnology can provide you the same experiencewith the customer with cost effective methods.

Moreover, a bank using the cloud computing hasthe tendency to mask their complexity level suchas if a bank undergoes some sort of issue in theiroperations, it can simple hide the issue from theend user which can result in more number ofconsumers. As the customer would not know thelevel of complexity he is facing, the bank can takethe advantage of the fact that they can enhancetheir services and product information by keepingthe customer at the same level. Similarly, one other


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advantage of it can be the maintenance work or ifyou want to update your system without theparticipation of the customer, your cloudtechnology can perform it itself easily.

With its massive storing capacity, a cloud providesthe customer access to the customization andproduct services. It enables the bank to optimizethe personal interaction with the customer andmake him adapt the changes done through a moreuser friendly way.

Making your IT resources more flexible

Cloud computing also allows the banks to drivetheir range of margins and growth level morespeedily by providing them enough room toimplement their streamline operations. Thisprovides them more profit ratio and operatingleverage as well. Cloud technology can help thebanks to eliminate the fact of risk and complexitylevel in their operations with low cost techniques.

The banking industry mostly spends its largeamount of revenue on their IT enterprises, buildingservers and networking equipment but the cloudtechnology shifts that expenditure from capital to

operational costs which actually matters. The goodpart of the cloud computing is that it does notrequire any fee for installing the software or theexpenses to install the hardware. You can simplyunderstand it by learning it as the expenses of thebank shifts from fixed to variable. It is like thatwhen the bank needs to spend, it spends,otherwise not! This simply eliminates the capitalexpenditure of the bank and hence the pay-per-usemodel provides more flexibility to the bank.

Cloud technology also allows a bank to scale itsbusiness operations without the need of addingmore servers to the network. That means now acompany does not need to wait for 45 days of timefor the servers to get provision, in fact, now thebanks have the ability with the cloud technology toenhance the speed of marketing its services.


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Enhances your speed

The connectivity to the ecosystems for thecustomers and your partners can be made mucheasier with the help of cloud technology. Cloudbased programs can gather people from differentgroups and can share the data and information at amuch higher rate than the previous ones. Theability of a bank to change its operations with thechange in the need of the customer is the actualdifference between you and your competitors.Banks are continuously trying to market thedemands of their customers but they are notproving themselves as good as they can by usingthe cloud technology.

Cloud computing rapidly changes itsinfrastructure and provides you more innovativeenvironment to drastically change the speed timeto market.

Types of models

There are three basic types of cloud models whichcan work differently for different industries.

1. Public cloud2. Private cloud3. Hybrid cloud

Private cloud

Public cloud is the cloud whoseinfrastructure is solely made for the use of thebank itself. It is up to a bank if they make it for athird party like IBM or something but this cloudcon compute all the changes and resources whichare shared by the employees, internal departmentssuch as IT and marketing resources.

Private clouds mainly enable the bank to maintainand standardize its services which are directlylinked with the customers. A bank gets much morecustomization access than the local public clouds.

Public cloud

The public cloud is totally managed by theorganization which is providing the network ofcloud technology and that is made public. In thismodel, all the computing services and such asstandardized business processes and applicationsare operated by multiple clients via pay-per-usemethod.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid cloud is the combination of both the publicand private cloud characteristics. The bank onlyuses the public cloud for general computingservices and applications while the other customerdata is kept in the private cloud for the purpose ofsecurity. The remaining portion of the public cloudis used by the cloud provider company as well.

Cloud systems reducing complexity

In the pure cloud system, everything is boundedtogether such as the networking equipment,management, and built-in security system so thereis no need to get the components together andintegrate them. This special cloud will solve all thecomplexities in the IT level to make it better for thecustomer experience.

Application development services for cloud

Cloud based applications as already discussedabove are less costly and are easier to manageother than the traditional applications we often seethe banks use for market the resources. However,to develop a cloud based application, you need tohave a new technique. The IBM Cloud ApplicationService makes sure that the application is totallycustomized from planning to design process.

Cloud computing security

The cloud computing security enables a bank tomonitor all the risks which a customer can havewhen accessing its data and this allows the bank to


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help customers maintain its visibility and otherresources which are used from end-to-end.

The bank can better understand the risks byknowing the following things:

A bank understands the threats in terms ofecosystems.Immediately responds to the threats withthe secured results.Bank knows the threats and prioritizesthem accordingly with the business needs.

Prepare yourself for the cloud computing now!

It seems easy to implement the cloud computingservices in the banking industry. Let us discusssome of the examples where cloud technology isbeing used in the banking industry.

A bank in Japan was feeling the security threat andrisk of business continuity so with that concern,they managed to contact the IBM for the privatecloud option and the bank of 34000 employeesthen set up a risk free setup of desktopsthroughout. This step took the bank up to a securelevel with the control in hand.

Another central bank in Europe used the samecloud infrastructure for their employees indifferent branches to quickly access the tradingand other banking systems with a cloud full ofsecurity.

Cloud applications allow you to follow theanalytics carefully and sequentially. Another bankin Europe designed a new sales platform whichcan be altered once instead of changing it orupdating it after every 20 minutes. This platformalso allows data to be seen by the bank from everyangle which in return can increase the sales of thebank due to artificial intelligence service providedby the cloud itself.

Conclusion

Hence we have seen much from the cloudcomputing technology that what it can do for thebanking industry and how it can be helpful for thebanks and their customers. They just not onlyenhance the relation between the customer and thebank but also speed up the pace of marketing forthe bank.

Moreover, the cloud provides a better secure levelof banking within the terms and conditions of thebanking industry. Cloud computing leads thebanks with more reliability and sense of security sothat they can make more sales and create aneffective environment between the customer andthe bank. Marketing can therefore be improved bythe cloud technology and your bank can performmuch better than before!

References

Cloud-Computing: An industry In Exponential Growth.(2015, March 27). Retrieved March 30, 2015, fromhttp://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032715/cloudcomputing-industry-exponential-growth.asp

IBM Cloud. (n.d.). Retrieved March 30, 2015, fromhttp://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/


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