Banks today face unprecedented challenges in meeting customer expectations, ensuring security, and staying competitive. Cloud technologies have emerged as a transformative force, offering banks the agility, scalability, and innovation capabilities needed to thrive in the digital age. For tech leaders in the banking sector, embracing cloud migration is no longer just an option—it's often a strategic imperative. Here's why.
Enhanced agility and innovation
Cloud platforms enable banks to rapidly develop, test, and deploy new services, dramatically reducing the time to market for innovative products. For instance, ING leveraged Kubernetes for container orchestration, allowing them to go from idea to production within 48 hours for some projects. This agility is crucial in today's fast-paced fintech environment.
Scalability and cost efficiency
Cloud infrastructure allows banks to scale resources on demand, optimizing costs while handling peak loads. HDFC Bank in India implemented a microservices-based application called "Governor" using Dapr, which allowed them to handle close to 750 million monthly transactions, scaling horizontally based on incoming HTTP traffic.
Improved security and compliance
Modern cloud solutions offer robust security measures and compliance tools. C6 Bank in Brazil adopted Orca Security for cloud security across AWS and GCP, improving visibility, threat detection, and compliance management for Brazilian and U.S. banking regulations.
Data-driven insights
Cloud-based analytics and AI capabilities help banks leverage their vast data stores. Atom Bank in the UK upgraded to Genesys Cloud, which provided them with real-time information and the ability to integrate advanced AI capabilities, driving service quality and employee experience improvements.
Operational resilience
Cloud architectures provide built-in redundancy and disaster recovery options. Rabobank in the Netherlands used Cilium for network security in their Kubernetes-based API platform, enabling self-service, zero-trust networking for 400 teams, significantly improving their operational resilience.
Modernisation of legacy systems
Cloud migration offers an opportunity to refactor and modernize legacy applications. China Minsheng Bank transformed its legacy C and Java applications to a Kubernetes platform, resulting in a 3-4x increase in delivery efficiency and doubled resource utilization.
Ecosystem integration
Cloud platforms facilitate easier integration with fintech partners and third-party services. Figo, a German banking service provider, migrated to a containerized infrastructure using Kubernetes, improving scalability and enabling better integration with fintech partners for developing new applications and services.
Customer experience enhancement
Cloud-native applications enable banks to deliver seamless, omnichannel experiences. Credit Europe Bank NV (CEB) implemented Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Integration, reducing customer onboarding time from two weeks to just 15 minutes and enabling fully digital account opening processes.
Automated workflows and processes
Cloud technologies facilitate the automation of complex banking processes. Bank11 in Germany implemented Camunda's cloud-based workflow automation platform, enabling faster credit processes for the automotive industry and achieving a high rate of automatic decision-making in lending.
Observability and monitoring
Cloud-native tools provide enhanced visibility into system performance. Banco BV in Brazil used Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Anthos, which offered improved observability and monitoring capabilities, helping them manage their microservices architecture more effectively.
These real-world examples demonstrate how cloud adoption in banking goes beyond mere infrastructure changes. It's a catalyst for comprehensive digital transformation, enabling banks to innovate faster, operate more efficiently, and deliver superior customer experiences. As regulatory environments evolve to accommodate cloud technologies, banks that delay migration risk falling behind more agile competitors.
For tech leaders in banking, the message is clear: cloud migration is not just about technology upgrades—it's about positioning your institution for success in an increasingly digital-first financial world. The diverse range of successful implementations across various banking functions and geographies shows that regardless of your bank's size or specific needs, there's a cloud strategy that can drive significant improvements in your operations and customer offerings.
Be cloud-ready with FSS BLAZE™
Most of the payments tech used today by banks and businesses runs on heavy, monolithic architectures. These systems face challenges in terms of scalability, complexity, maintenance and slow release cycles. It is because of these constraints that the current infrastructure might not be able to keep pace with the rising demand for digital payments.
Hence, what the banking and payments industries require is an agile, scalable and resilient technological framework. The tech stack of every bank needs an upgrade so that they are able to achieve their full potential.
This is where FSS BLAZE™ comes in.
FSS BLAZE™ is the payment platform for digital acceleration. A microservices based platform, it offers seamless growth, uninterrupted performance and effortless integration with modern day digital banking solutions. FSS BLAZE™ is built with the intention of offering technology that enables population-scale development and deployment of future-proof payment systems.
All FSS products are now upgraded to the BLAZE™ platform and run to enable unmatched scale and speed. The FSS Payment Gateway, for example, can process more than 10,000 transactions per second using the BLAZE™ architecture.
With FSS BLAZE™, banks, financial institutions and businesses can be ready for the next surge in digital payment transactions.
Learn more about FSS BLAZE™ here.
