Unlike other sectors, cloud adoption is still lagging in the financial sector. The main reason for this as expected would be the concerns about data security. Financial institutions typically handle large volumes of sensitive financial data which can lead to disastrous consequences if intercepted or compromised in any way. This explains why businesses may be hesitant when it comes to adopting cloud computing in this industry.

However, things are changing today and this industry is slowly starting to appreciate the benefits which cloud computing offers. So, more and more institutions are gradually making the shift. And in an age of digitalization, the time is just ripe to make this change. According to studies it has been reported that nearly 48% banks have started to use SaaS solutions for their administrative backend tasks.

Although some businesses find working with private clouds to be a far more secure option provided the vendor is reliable, there are many banks and insurance firms which are also putting their trust in the scalable and cost-friendly public clouds.

Ways in which heads of finance companies use cloud computing:

1- Most CIOs find the cloud to be the best option for placing their back-office systems. This is because the internal management in these offices entails a lot of tedious tasks. When you make a shift to the cloud, you do not have to bother about procuring and maintaining the hardware, cooling and power systems, staff utilization for introducing hardware etc.

The change to a cloud environment for the back office systems seems to be an easy job for the finance companies. They do not feel that they are putting their customers at risk by doing so. So, the more common applications which are being sent to the cloud include the CRM, payroll and time-tracking apps, digital workloads like emails and sites, Office 365 etc.

2- In view of the growth of mobile apps and customer websites, both insurance and bank institutions are getting to enjoy the advantages offered by clouds for their customer-facing applications. They have understood that it is simpler to choose the cloud for its agility and scalability. In-house management is not an easy task. Neither is it economical especially when faced with the problem of fluctuating traffic.

3- The cloud has also been increasingly adopted by CIOs because if helps in hosting insurance policy management. These policy management systems will contain critical data like the copies of client policies and background checks, new insurance claims etc. So, the PCI-compliant and HIPAA compliant clouds are believed to be the perfect choice for storing this kind of valuable data which demands that its supporting infrastructure also be compliant.

4- Businesses which can operate and manage data centers are found to be trustworthy as they know exactly what is to be done. This is because they are equipped to handle day-to-day operations in the data centers. The cloud can be effectively used for disaster recovery purposes. So, businesses which do not have facilities or lack sufficient power or cooling to deploy DR systems can benefit from clouds. They only have to pay monthly fees to the vendors to enjoy their DR services and protect their data from disaster. They will not have to pay anything extra to buy hardware.

5- With digitalization, use of Big Data has increased in the financial sector too. So, huge volumes of data get generated every day, whether it is through online websites or mobile apps or through the Internet of Things devices. This financial world is well aware that this huge amount of data can be translated into relevant information for decision making, or to get an insight into trends in consumer behavior. But this data must be placed somewhere.

So, the cloud is held to be the best possible solution for delivering systems and for helping in storage of data in ways which are PCI and HIPAA compliant. This is because the data in banks or in financial companies is very critical and the information must therefore be stored in a secure manner. Clouds designed with proper built-in security features can be the best place for storing such valuable data. When you choose cloud computing, you can enjoy a high degree of scalability; so, you will not be faced with issues of resource limitations.

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