Up until now, public cloud has been seen as a pipe dream in banks – seemingly not secure enough to hold sensitive data.
So we commissioned a report titled “Are Banks Really Ready for Cloud?” to explore whether banks are now ready for public cloud projects. In the wake of the European Banking Authority’s (EBA) published guidelines on how to outsource and supervise cloud environments effectively, we wanted to determine a number of things:
- Are public cloud projects in banks on the rise? If yes, why?
- Which use cases are banks moving to public clouds?
- What are the main factors stopping public cloud projects going ahead in banks?
- What do public clouds mean for banks’ hiring strategies?
In speaking to some of the world’s biggest banks and their consultants, we now know the state of play for public clouds in banks.
Here are our highlights.
Public cloud budgets for 2018 are not a myth
Some banks are rapidly increasing their use of public clouds in 2018, so much so that banks’ IT budgets are increasing by up to 70% in the next two years to cope with the initial spin-up fees. Up until now, many banks have not catered for public cloud usage within IT budgets, meaning the demand is initially high for hardware rental, as certain public cloud projects get underway.
GDPR and general compliance are the biggest obstacles to public cloud
The dangers posed by data leaks and general compliance challenges, including complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are still defined as the biggest threats preventing public cloud migration, with over half of interviewees stating compliance.
The great use case debate: risk-related use cases are being closely evaluated for public cloud projects
Recently, the European Banking Authority (EBA) released Recommendations to banks for supervising outsourced cloud projects, including guidance on data processing and auditing. The one issue banks are still struggling to determine, despite the guidelines, is which use
cases are suitable for public cloud. In our survey, 64% of respondents believe we will see more risk-related use cases migrated to public cloud from the banks, such as Market Risk and Counterparty Risk.
Interestingly, 40% respondents believe there is no use case just suitable for private cloud, which opens up more opportunities for use cases involving Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and sensitive company information.
You’re hired! Banks are looking for new skills as a result of public cloud projects
The traditional installer and network roles are getting re-tooled. Banks need less installers, and more coders, information security specialist and individuals with service management backgrounds. If traditional infrastructure specialists are willing to adapt their skills, they are likely to move to new roles within a bank. If not, you will see the cloud vendors acquiring these candidates from the banks to help manage the bigger customer accounts.
To learn more about our findings, read the full report here :
