How Building Societies Can Use Cloud to Enhance Digital Banking Experience

The Risk of Remaining On-Premises

For many senior leaders at building societies, retaining on-premises infrastructures can seem like a lower risk option than undertaking a cloud transformation. This may be true in the short-term, but in the medium- and long-term it will introduce risks that – if left unchecked – will harm the building society and its members. We’ll run through these risks one at a time:

• Cyber security resilience. In today’s hostile digital landscape, infrastructures need to be safeguarded from all manner of cyber security threats. Legacy on-premises deployments often lack the latest cyber security functionality needed to tackle contemporary cyber threats.
• Regulatory compliance. Regulators like the FCA and PCI DSS are constantly evolving their compliance requirements. Evolving an on-premises infrastructure to remain in-line can be a full-time job on its own – if it’s possible at all.
• Access to OpenAPI. On-premises infrastructures are bad for OpenAPI – where software developers work with banks and building societies to evolve application functionality. If a building society isn’t innovating, its members may move to one that is.
• Business continuity. Disaster recovery and business continuity measures for on-premises infrastructures are often much less evolved than their cloud equivalents, potentially leading to extended downtime that can frustrate members.
• Accessibility. Today’s always-on consumers expect access to their financial information, whenever and however is most convenient to them. This puts a real strain on the connectivity arrangements in-place for on-premises infrastructures.
• Performance. Building societies will always have busy periods, like the beginning of the month and members’ pay days. The inherent inflexibility of on-premises infrastructures makes it tough to scale to ensure members always receive the high performance they expect.

These risks should not be taken lightly by any building society that is keen to innovate and enhance digital banking experience for its members. So what is the mitigation? Well, cloud – when planned, provisioned and managed effectively – will mitigate them all. And as we’ll explore in the following section, there are a number of compelling cloud transformation drivers that building societies should consider.

Top Tip: through our Application Modernisation Advisory, we will review your current applications and your existing application architecture, and provide an advisory report to transform and modernise your applications securely into the cloud.

Cloud Transformation Drivers

Why are building societies moving in ever-increasing numbers to the cloud? Here are some of the key cloud transformation drivers we’re seeing in the market.

• Modern application delivery depends on a cloud model to provide the agility and processing power needed to delight users. By moving to the cloud, building societies can deliver an enhanced digital banking experience that provides members with the services they need, when and how they need them.
• Legacy on-premises and private cloud deployments are time and resource-intensive to support. Cloud computing enables building societies to reduce costs through resource and skills optimisation.
• Cloud deployments are inherently flexible and scalable, enabling building societies to adapt quickly to changing resource and capability requirements. This drives increased revenue growth through access to a more scalable and flexible platform.
• The retail finance sector has never been more competitive, with established names competing with progressive start-ups to gain new customers. Cloud technology enables building societies to gain a competitive edge by adopting new technological capabilities.
• Regulatory compliance is a non-negotiable for all building societies. Cloud technology makes it easier to achieve compliance by meeting data protection, security and statutory requirements.
• Building societies operate in an increasingly hostile digital landscape, where data breach can result in severe operational, financial and reputational damage. Cloud technology enhances security measures by storing valuable data and information in a secure location that is monitored and protected, 24×7.

As you can see, the cloud transformation drivers for building societies are compelling. But in many cases, building societies lack the resources and knowledge to execute a digital transformation project entirely in-house. That’s where Six Degrees comes in.

Enhance Digital Banking Experience

Retail banking is a competitive market, and building societies need to work harder than ever before to attract and retain new members. One of the keys to success is harnessing the cloud to enhance digital banking experience while meeting operational and regulatory requirements.

Specialist cloud technology providers like Six Degrees act as a bridge between all of the services building societies require today, and their future aims of becoming public cloud-ready. While no organisation can become cloud-enabled overnight, it can reach that goal faster if it chooses a provider that knows how to get there.

So, what’s the first step? We recommend kickstarting your cloud transformation with a Cloud Readiness Assessment. At Six Degrees, we work with you to understand your cloud motivations and objectives. This enables us to design a scalable and flexible cloud solution that fits your evolving business requirements.