Financial institutions have always been wary about investing in the cloud. It was the sudden shift to remote working caused by the pandemic that pushed it to a no.1 priority. We can see this by several key investments: HSBC's cloud agreement with AWS, Google Cloud's 10-year partnership with Deutsche Bank, and the announcement recently made by Santander that it is migrating over 200 servers to the cloud per day. This is a staggering development. 

Hybrid working is now a critical business need. Cloud strategies form a crucial part of this new working networking model. Financial Institutions now need to consider if they can migrate to or optimise their cloud utility while respecting increasing security and regulation requirements as hybrid working continues.

Reasons for adopting the cloud

A distinguished reason, and this extended far beyond the financial sector, was the need for secure and efficient remote working. Financial organisations had a notoriously small remote workforce pre-covid, but it is estimated to have risen by at least 40% in the wake of the pandemic. 

There are other reasons why financial institutions may invest in cloud solutions, such as supporting business-critical applications, products and services affected by the pandemic.

Several reasons for cloud adoption were already being motioned before covid-19 arrived. These include:

•  Offering innovative services such as remote banking
• Responding to evolving market dynamics such as bank closures
• The need for cashless solutions
  

On the whole, though, these migrations were being made cautiously. Cloud connections were rapidly established to enable operations to continue with a dispersed workforce, whilst providing customers with new digital, decentralised tools to help navigate the shift.

Why have financial institutions found cloud adoption difficult?

This rapid investment in the cloud hasn't come without issues, and it highlights some of the barriers which perhaps prevented adoption earlier on.

1. Regulations: These vary. One of the biggest issues has stemmed from data storage regulations that insist on data being held in, and only accessible from, its country of origin. This makes cloud connections a complicated operation because it is commonly thought multiple connections are needed for global operations.
2. data security: Despite data protection being a high priority for not just institutions, but the public in general, the lack of control and visibility into security in cloud environments have obstructed numerous financial institutions from welcoming the cloud.
3. Increased complexity: Managing multiple cloud providers or connections means higher resource investment and greater room for error. It also increases the complexity of management and security which affects institutions’ bottom lines. 

01T offers solutions that combat these issues for Financial Institutions with their global network, GNX.

Cloud adoption starts with having the right network provider

With or without these barriers, cloud migration is a complicated process because it always comes back down to strategy. The chosen network provider is a key piece in this puzzle.

Networks that offer multiple points of connectivity from many cloud on-ramp options give senior members of financial institutions flexibility in their cloud adoption strategy. A high performing, high capacity, low latency network will also make the world of difference in maintaining agility in the ever-evolving finance world. Establishing direct connections to cloud environments brings a host of benefits to any organisation, and not every provider offers this. 

To find out more about networks, cloud connections and the financial sector, check out our posts on GNX or get in touch with the team.