Iomart : Don't Hesitate to Innovate

The mobility with which consumers access financial services is driving huge change across our economy. Banking is no longer 9 to 5. Twenty-four hour demand for access from multiple devices in any location means that financial service institutions that fail to keep up with this pace of expectation from digtially-savvy customers will suffer.

So how can cloud services support this change? There are seven key benefits:

1. Scalability

The ability to scale up and scale down processing capacity quickly to meet spikes in customer demand.

2. Operational Efficiency

The opportunity to get rid of legacy infrastructure that has grown arms and legs and replace it with a standard approach to storage and services, and improved efficiency around implementing updates and changes.

3. Security of Service

Risk can be managed according to regulatory need through the selection of a cloud provider that provides clarity on the management of access to and encryption of data. Similarly, by choosing a cloud provider with UK sovereign data centres, ISO and PCI DSS accreditations and strong Service Level Agreements, security is assured.

4. Improved Delivery

Consuming cloud services as and when needed also allows for a much more streamlined development and testing process which in turn leads to faster delivery to customers.

5. Customer Satisfaction

Faster transactions and access to services can only be good for customer happiness and loyalty.

6. Cost Savings

Cost efficiencies are achieved by paying for services that are actually being consumed rather than infrastructure that is 'always on' but not necessarily being used.

7. Continuous Innovation

Using a cloud service provider means your IT team is freed up and can instead focus on developing and delivering new applications more quickly than ever before.

Gartner recently reported that it expects financial management business applications to undergo a steady migration to the cloud in the next five to 10 years. John Van Decker, their research vice president said, 'Many enterprises that currently run on-premises solutions want to move to newer solutions that put more control in the hands of the end user, and reduce the effort required when compared with on-premises upgrades.'

It is this putting of technology in the hands of the customer that is key. By providing a better experience for customers, those customers are more likely to remain loyal.

This in turn leads to financial benefits for the more established financial services companies and those seeking to disrupt. In its 2017 Global Fintech Report, PwC reported that the majority of financial services organisations were planning to increase their partnerships with fintech companies because of the threat to their revenue streams if they didn't collaborate. However PwC also identified that partnering with an established finance company gave fintech disruptors access to income and a bigger customer base.

It's clear that the ability to apply technology at scale to automate all manner of banking services is being driven by the need to maximise future investment in innovation and respond to rapidly changing customer demand.

For more information on iomart's FinTech expertise, please contact us.