It has taken a relatively long time for the cloud to be adopted by the financial services sector. Like the government, this sector has to take reliability and security with the utmost seriousness. Now, however, the cloud for financial services is finally here. As with other sectors, it’s delivering huge benefits for a very reasonable price.
All clouds are essentially decentralized IT networks. The cloud for financial services is essentially a big data platform. It is mainly valued for its data-analysis capabilities. These can be used for everything from large-scale threat monitoring to delivering the highest levels of customer service. It’s also valued for the benefits it delivers to employees.
Even though the cloud for financial services is a relatively new development, it has already had a huge impact on the financial services sector. Here are just some of the ways the cloud for financial services is making financial services better for everyone.
Most industries have to manage and monitor compliance with some regulatory programs. In the financial services sector, however, the issue of compliance has a particularly high level of relevance. Firstly, it needs to hold extremely sensitive data for its work. Secondly, its services are hugely desirable to criminals.
To complicate matters even more, financial services companies often work across international boundaries. They may do this through intermediaries (e.g. third-party payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard). In itself, however, this is unlikely to absolve them of accountability in the event of issues such as data breaches or misuse of their services.
For all of these reasons (and more), financial services companies are legally obliged to participate in a wide range of compliance programs. Some of these are fairly well-known (e.g. PCI). Others are not necessarily widely understood even within the financial services sector, at least not in real depth (e.g. anti-money-laundering).
Leveraging the cloud for financial services allows financial services companies to manage these compliance programs with maximum efficiency in all senses of the phrase. Firstly, the cloud’s capabilities help to deliver the best results. Secondly, the cloud for financial services delivers these results with the minimum level of resources.
Compliance programs are essentially preventive measures. Unfortunately, even the best compliance programs can’t entirely prevent all security risks or every attempt at fraud. They simply provide a solid foundation for recognizing and fighting it.
The cloud for financial services has become the best tool available for doing battle against criminals of all kinds. This is mainly because of its ability to process large quantities of data at speed. Speed is generally of the essence when it comes to fighting crime. That’s particularly true of the sort of crimes that are targeted at financial services.
Ideally, you want to stop crimes before they can be committed. This is done by identifying and addressing potential threats. For clarity, the key word here is “potential”. Some behaviors will trigger alerts that turn out to be unwarranted. Unfortunately, this inconvenience is part of the price that needs to be paid for effective security.
If you can’t prevent a crime, then the next best option is to identify that it has happened as soon as it happens. This gives crime fighters the best possible chance of catching up with the criminals before they have a chance to make a clean getaway (physical or digital).
When it comes to customer services, the financial services sector has to face the same challenges as everybody else. On the one hand, many businesses genuinely do want to provide the very highest levels of customer service. On the other hand, this has traditionally come at a high price. This has meant that, realistically, some businesses (and their customers) have had to settle for (much) less than the best.
Over recent years, businesses in all sectors have experimented with using technology to resolve this conflict. Initially, this experiment had mixed results at best. For example, the early days of automatic call routing were often an exercise in frustration. Over time, however, the technology has matured. Now the cloud is helping to take it to a whole new level.
The cloud for financial services is enabling financial services companies to deliver real, value-add services at an affordable cost. These services often help customers to do more to manage their finances themselves. As such, they reduce the burden on human staff and hence free them from tasks where they add real value.
As with all sectors, the cloud for financial services has helped to empower and engage employees at all levels. It’s also helping to make remote/hybrid working a reality and is therefore helping businesses to address labor shortages.
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