Future-proofing financial services: Cloud strategies are a must for 2024

Mohammed Muneebuddin, with more than 15 years of experience in Datacenter, Cloud and Managed Services Industry, leads the BFSI services vertical in Cloud4C. He is working to empower financial institutions with risk-proof hybrid and multi-cloud transformations in close association with top ISVs, hyperscale providers to help enhance business growth and technology disruption in BFSI.

Cloud is largely a question of WHEN and not WHY for businesses today. What are some common cloud transformation scenarios for BFSI organisations in the ME?

The Middle East is fast embracing digital banking and the cloud is the foundation behind the accelerated adoption. Instead of just infra and storage requirements, enterprises are exploring cloud models that will address their growth, expansion, and product innovation projections. Realistic transformation scenarios could be

What do you think are the prime challenges deterring cloud adoption or maximisation of cloud benefits for BFSI?

It’s the customer experience versus risk mitigation dilemma. While modernisation is key to delivering seamless digital experiences, executives fear operational disruptions. There’s also the issue of choosing the cloud strategy best suited for the firm’s business goals and the central bank guidelines. Availability of core cloud experts is a challenge and having a fully in-house team is often more expensive than partnering with a trusted MSP. Change management, lastly, is a continual challenge and firms have to invest in lengthy training sessions to fully engage employees on newly adopted platforms.

Let’s pick the greenfield scenario. What is an optimum, risk proofed cloud transformation strategy for FSIs with legacy environments?

For all practical purposes, moving the entire stack to cloud from legacy landscapes in one shot might not be feasible. Many financial institutions in MEA are still running on on-prem cores that require modernisation from the ground-up, if hosted workloads are to be moved completely to cloud. The middle path with reduced risk could be a phased one, starting with moving newer non-core yet important workloads to cloud while the core data systems are still hosted on-prem. Or, embrace DRaaS for data backup and business continuity. Once the first phase is running successfully, additional workloads can be moved to the cloud in phases.

How can cloud technology aid BFSIs who are exploring cross-geographic expansions?

Clarity on a few questions is critical when drafting a cloud strategy for cross-border expansions. What’s the expected traffic, demand for services in the new region? What additional compliances need to be considered? Is my current CSP available at all locations, guaranteeing the same performance? Hybrid and multi-cloud could be the right solution in such scenarios. A financial institution can continue on-prem at the central location and invest in a hyperscale pod in a new branch; hybrid cloud. Or a firm can select a particular public cloud (primary and DR) in-country while embracing a different provider in the new country or continent, a multi-cloud example. In-country cloud platforms, for instance, can aid in meeting local regulations, compliances and data residency and hence accelerate market launch. It all depends on feasibility and business value at the end of the day.

What about neobanks and fintechs? How should they approach their upcoming cloud investments?

Considering neobanks and fintechs are already invested in cloud, primary goals should be leveraging the cloud best and maximising value. First and foremost, choosing the right mix of cloud-native services; pairing an advanced monitoring tool with DevOps and GitOps pipelines for instance. Adopting updated security frameworks, compliance governance, and consolidating dataflows into cloud-native data lakes for data-driven decision making could be imperative use cases. Finally, observability, cost optimisation, and FinOps could be embraced to accurately map business impact through cloud, enhancing value year on year.

Let’s talk about cybersecurity and compliance. That is no doubt one of the biggest areas of concern for BFSIs.

Cloud ecosystems offer the most versatile, intelligent stack of cybersecurity solutions available for BFSI organisations to modernise cybersecurity and compliance management, uphold digital safety, privacy, and integrity of customers. At Cloud4C, we extend a Cyber Defence Centre where risk management is blueprinted at the core of the digital journey, combining advanced solutions like SIEM-SOAR, SOC, Self Healing Platforms, Compliance-as-a-Service, with skilled professionals. All central bank-decreed compliances and cybersecurity controls have been mapped to tools, services, and SLAs, implementation of which is imperative in moving workloads to cloud. Our automation-driven compliance as a service allows organisations to run processes compliant with all central bank laws, data regulations, and international standards.

Rounding up, can you give us a sneak peek into new initiatives or innovations from Cloud4C’s desk?

Cloud4C’s BFSI reference architectures powered by Self-Healing Operations Platform (SHOP) were conceptualised to help make multi-cloud ITOps seamless, autonomous, and 360-degree risk-proof. We set up a unique hybrid managed services model to allow expert access to 25+ centres of excellence on demand and deliver 99.95 per cent availability at the app login layer. This year, we aim to double down efforts on critical solutions such as FinOps to help BFSIs maximise their cloud value, intelligent cyber defense, Data analytics and AI, and multi-cloud containerisation. As one of the world’s leading application-focused hybrid and multi-cloud MSPs managing mission critical environments, we kickstart every engagement or innovation strategy focusing on business outcomes. Visit cloud4c.com to learn more.

• KT Engage