Cloud technology continues its expansion: IBM launches the first financial-specific cloud with Bank of America
IBM announced it built the first financial services cloud in a deal with Bank of America.
This is IBM’s first cloud dedicated exclusively to a particular business, and the first financial services-specific cloud technology in the world. Why do financial services need specific cloud technology? Due to its particularly high and unique regulatory and security standards.
“By setting a standard that addresses the concern of hosting highly confidential information, we aim to drive the public cloud to a safety level that is unmatched,” said Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer of Bank of America.
Bank of America has tried to improve its cloud computing capacity in the past few years, which has led it to cut down its number of servers from 200,000 to 70,000 and its data centers from 67 to 23, which has resulted in a $2 billion annual saving. This deal is the next step of a seven-year old quest with cloud computing to improve security and privacy of its customers while creating a market-specific solution for financial organizations.
Why is cloud computing so important in the financial sector? Because more transactions, especially long-scale transactions are becoming digital, thus, there’s a vital need: that the financial services provider’s platform is able to keep the data safe, prevent data leaks, and pass information swiftly, all of which cloud technology helps to improve.
Still, many people seem to feel that cloud technology is not safe. For example, Capital One had a huge data leak earlier this year, which led many to ask if third-party cloud technology was safe enough for banks. The deal between Bank of America and IBM aims to answer this situation offering a personalized cloud for the financial industry and its particularities.
“The financial services-ready public cloud has been designed to help address the requirements of financial services institutions for regulatory compliance, security and resiliency. This will help financial institutions transact with technology vendors who have met the platform’s requirements. It is the only industry-specific public cloud platform that can provide preventative and compensatory controls for financial services regulatory workloads, multi-architecture support and proactive and automated security, leveraging the industry’s highest levels of encryption certification,” said IBM in a statement.
IBM’s cloud will allow ISVs and SaaS providers to emphasize their core products to financial organizations as they don’t have to worry about controls or security, which are put in place by the banking-specific cloud.
“This is one of the most important collaborations in the financial services industry cloud space,” said Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer, Bank of America. “This industry-first platform will allow Bank of America to use the public cloud, putting data security, resiliency, privacy and customer information safety needs at the forefront of decision making.”
This deal opens a new space for cloud computing as it’s definitely not going to be the last. It will allow financial organizations to have the chance of evaluating and complying with the security standards that they need.