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So much of our daily digital experience, at home and in business, is enabled by the Cloud. In fact digital transformation and cloud infrastructure are practically synonymous. Why should the digital experience of Capital Markets be any different?
Historically there has been tentativeness around adopting cloud tech in the financial sector. Security, privacy and compliance have been major sticking points.
Nevertheless, fintech infrastructure providers are increasingly winning over capital markets participants with cloud technology that revolutionises cost efficiencies and speed-to-value, without compromising on security, resilience and regulatory compliance.
Multiple flavours of Cloud
With these concerns in mind there are numerous flavours of cloud provision from which Capital Markets participants can benefit. The best cloud service providers operating in the financial sector are aware of both the advantages and limitations of public cloud technology. For these reasons Capital Markets’ tech specialists offer private and hybrid cloud infrastructure configurations, according to the required control, security and performance guarantees of the workload.
For more insight into the different cloud offerings see our blogs ‘Why private cloud over public cloud’ and ‘Which private cloud is best’.
Beeks also offers its flagship Proximity Cloud configuration, which is a private environment in a fully configured, pre-built rack that can be deployed anywhere in the world.
Proximity Cloud enables Capital Markets customers to have greater visibility and control over their environment and is the ideal solution for financial enterprises looking for the ultimate secure and scalable low latency environment.
Resilient Economies of Scale
Whatever the flavour of cloud, Capital Markets firms can reduce their hardware and connectivity spend by making use of shared data centre infrastructure, power and footprint. Cloud Service Providers have invested much in the facilities and security of physical data centres, enhancing resilience through automated back-up and recovery processes, and regular patching, maintenance, and compliance audits.
They can also outsource system monitoring and management to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers who can remotely oversee multiple virtual container configurations and machine operating systems in cloud-enabled co-locations.
As a result, trading companies can enjoy greater affordability and agility of resilient tech provision in colocation.
Innovation
IaaS represents a significant shift in Capital Market companies’ operating models, ushered in by digital cloud transformation. Individual firms can rely on a subscription arrangement with experts in financial cloud service provision, paying only for their usage and enjoying peace of mind that their underlying tech is being handled.
This in turn drives innovation in-house as firms can focus more on application development rather than infrastructure implementation. The impact on Capital Markets is greater creativity and competitive edge in placements, and stock and trade cost analytics.
Responsiveness
Analytics as a Service is another example where cloud service providers are taking the load off in-house IT departments in the Capital Markets’ sector. Machine learning technology helps to monitor bandwidth usage, network activity and any delays to connectivity down to the milli-second.
When problems are detected they are flagged with suggestions on how to rectify them. This way firms are receiving insights into connections, transactions, trade volume, profitability and workflow issues.
By presenting the data in different ways Analytics as a Service addresses the needs of different client audiences simultaneously, whilst giving a unified view of activity performance.
Digital transformation is therefore giving Capital Markets firms more visibility of their platform and better tools to respond to any problems that might affect business.
Global capability
Cloud technology operates across borders, meaning there are no geographical limits to provision and connectivity. For Capital Markets firms this means the ability to spin-up trade in any location in the world, either to build a presence or test the water.
With shared co-locations, the ability to structure costs through subscriptions and best in class system analytics IaaS delivers more agile, innovative and flexible IT for Capital Markets than ever.
Environmental benefit
The impact on Capital Markets’ ESG position as a result of outsourcing their IaaS cloud service provision cannot be overlooked.
There is less physical equipment to source and implement, and fewer airmiles consumed in system support and maintenance. Today digital transformation not only introduces new possibilities but also reduces damage to the planet.
Regulatory considerations
While regulators focus increasingly on the risks of outsourcing and of concentrating workloads within geographical locations or with select service providers, financial technologists are aware of the importance of flexibility when it comes to offering the most effective and resilient solutions.
This means that businesses might consider developing closer partnerships with sector technology specialists who can advocate against restrictive legislation and ensure there is still competitive differentiation within cloud offerings.
Beeks’ offering
As specialists in the technical infrastructure underpinning capital markets trading Beeks Group is highly experienced and knowledgeable about all the different permutations of private and public cloud capabilities, and how far these are suitable for the needs of financial institutions.
We offer secure, high-performance, guaranteed private cloud infrastructure all around the globe, and can accommodate exclusive, single-tenant security requirements, as well as replication of hosting.
Whilst Beeks recognises the cost-effective value of public cloud shared resources offering businesses cost-effective services, we also recommend a ‘horses for courses’ approach. This means ensuring that our customers align the importance of their workload with the relevant solution.
Find out more here
beeksgroup.com | hello@beeksgroup.com
