Financial Services Firms Bank on the Cloud

by Darryl K. Taft

As part of a 10-year, multibillion-dollar IT infrastructure services agreement, IBM is helping ABN AMRO implement a private cloud together with further standardization and simplification of the Dutch bank’s existing IT landscape, from mobile computing to mainframe. Through continued optimization and transformation to cloud infrastructure, ABN AMRO aims to improve service quality, drive greater operational efficiencies, and deliver new and innovative products that meet the changing digital needs of its customers globally.

The Hartford is transforming the way it delivers IT services by implementing a new infrastructure that includes a private cloud. As the company focuses on growing its group benefits, mutual funds, and property and casualty businesses, the hybrid IT model will enhance The Hartford’s ability to anticipate and meet the needs of customers and agents. By taking advantage of the inherent benefits that cloud computing offers, the company expects to reduce costs, improve system availability and business continuity capabilities, and bring products and technology services to market faster.

Banco Popular of Spain turned to IBM to help transform its technology infrastructure, including its private cloud. Outsourcing its IT infrastructure to IBM will help Banco Popular achieve market standards in terms of technology services needed to drive its digital transformation, and it is expected to deliver an accumulated savings of $200 million over the 10 years of the deal.

Janalakshmi Financial Services, an India-based microfinance provider, is tapping IBM cloud, mobile and analytics technologies to help digitize and automate its business processes. Janalakshmi has an aggressive expansion plan to increase its footprint from 154 branches and 3 million accounts to 1,400 branches serving over 20 million accounts by 2020. The urban-focused microlender turned to IBM to design, build and manage a more flexible, scalable and secure technology platform that integrates cloud capabilities with traditional infrastructure.

Boursorama, a pioneer and leader in online banking and a subsidiary of the French Societe Generale group, is moving its Web-based IT to a cloud infrastructure from IBM’s SoftLayer unit. By deploying its services on SoftLayer, Boursorama will be able to improve management of IT resources by quickly activating servers based on specific client needs and usage.

German financial giant Allianz is consolidating and integrating its internal networks and global data centers into a private cloud infrastructure called the Allianz Private Cloud. With IBM’s help, the insurer will reduce its total number of data centers from 140 to just six.

Ujjivan Financial Services, another microfinance company in India, is using IBM’s private cloud resilience services to ensure continuous business operations for its customers’ financial transactions. The firm approached IBM about a managed cloud service to support its rapid growth across India and ensure high availability and always-on operations. IBM’s private cloud and cloud-based Virtualized Server Recovery solution provides a resilient IT infrastructure that helps Ujjivan mitigate downtime risks and ensures the firm is able to meet the around-the-clock needs of its customers.

Westpac New Zealand is banking on IBM private cloud technology to become New Zealand’s leading digital bank. Using a private cloud to develop and test applications within a dedicated environment, Westpac will be able to deploy new online and mobile banking services faster across multiple devices and platforms in response to customer demand. As customers’ digital needs grow and the bank’s security demands change, IBM is helping Westpac NZ respond with enhanced online security features, such as the ability to manage identity and access through a single user ID.

Zitouna Bank of Tunisia turned to the cloud to help transform its core banking systems, support its expansion goals, and roll out new online and mobile services for customers. A scalable cloud environment composed of IBM servers, storage, software and services provides the increased flexibility, performance and economy the bank requires to support its growth strategy. The bank plans to open as many as 18 new branches each year to further establish itself as a leader in the Tunisian banking industry. The new capabilities also are improving the bank’s applications availability and efficiency by reducing batch processing time for daily transactions by more than 85 percent, from over 13 hours to just 70 minutes.

TienPhong Bank, one of the leading banks in Vietnam, is using IBM cloud technology to expand its business operations, drive growth and deliver a variety of new customer services. IBM helped the bank shift from its traditional IT systems to a private cloud environment composed of IBM servers, systems and software with the aim of achieving more standardization, greater operational savings and faster time to the market. Using the cloud has enabled TienPhong Bank to launch nine new transaction centers across the country as well as new e-banking services, such as electronic payment and online gold trading services.