For most of us, bank visits have been a tiring task. Age-old working modules, processes, and legacy systems are a few things that increase the difficulty for every customer visiting banks. Traditional systems, segmented databases, and local branches constricted the banking industry for decades.
But that’s not the case anymore. The new landscape and difficulties of an ongoing pandemic have pushed the banking sector to consider agility with the cloud. Remote working, lockdown, customer retention, and revenue generation are a few factors contributing to this faster adoption of cloud tech in banking. The industry’s need for innovation and seamless technology has compelled quicker adoption and migration to cloud technology.
The new banking landscape – How Banks are adopting cloud technology
Motivated by the advances in FinTech and cloud technology, the banking industry is adopting cloud to improve:
- Agility
- Speed
- Availability
- Product
- Services
- Revenue
- Customer experience
In the new age, banking services are now available to every customer at the touch of a button.
Cloud Adoption in the banking industry – The Challenges
Agility was slowest in banking compared to other industries. Concerns over data loss, security, and privacy became major blockers. Other factors that contributed to slow cloud technology adoption in banking included –
The fear of the unknown – The all-in perception, assumption of complete restructure, and misperceptions about the cloud hindered the transition.
Not that secure – Belief in the security of on-premises data store points and distrust in cloud systems’ ability to data protection also added to the slow adoption.
Resource management – Allocation of leadership, operational and IT resources required planning and investment making it a tough process.
Operational infrastructure – Legacy old systems and processes caused trouble.
How is the banking sector overcoming cloud adoption challenges?
Due to the accelerated demand, the banking sector was compelled to look beyond the above-mentioned challenges and find solutions to ease cloud migration. Confidence presented by early adopters and the rise of cloud service providers also gave a much-awaited boost to the process. However, the shift from a traditional model to the cloud requires an organization to inspect and identify obstacles in three key areas:
- Comfort & Confidence
- Resource Management
- Interoperability
Once the problems were identified, it was resolved by –
A steady and gradual transition – This helped decision-makers break the barrier of complete restructuring, and the transition became easy.
Understanding cloud models – Security concerns were solved by understanding cloud models (private, public & hybrid) and choosing the best one to secure the data.
Cloud service providers – The resource management issue was solved by cloud service providers through end-to-end process management and simultaneously training in-house teams.
Infrastructure management – With cloud-based technology and cloud service providers, it became easy to create a co-existing infrastructural network and advance steadily to create future-ready options.
Custom APIs and tools in cloud technology help banking enterprises create an open, standardized, modern platform that caters to custom digital needs at every touchpoint.
The way forward
Cloud adoption is no longer an IT strategy. It is a business strategy that, if leveraged correctly, can stimulate positive customer experience, product & service distribution, and overall revenue.
For ages, banking has witnessed both customers and commercial reliant on the digital medium to access financial products. However, with the recent pandemic, the digital shift has been marvelous.
Starting from quick cloud tech adoption, digital transformation, enhanced customer experience, and remote access to services and products became new means to survival. The ability to innovate and develop new products quickly became key to beating competition and success. Cloud tech enables quick response time with low technical and financial risks for banks.
Today, banks that can crystallize a robust cloud strategy and make the business transformation a reality will open new business dimensions.
