Banks on cloud nine!
ING has joined forces with other banks to strengthen the European financial industry’s public cloud ecosystem by establishing The European Cloud User Coalition (ECUC). The objective is to develop common security standards and best practices for the use of cloud technology in the EU.
ING is an early adopter of cloud technology and sees it an important element in its digital transformation.
Private clouds have been widely used throughout the banking industry, however public cloud solutions that connect to partners and other platforms are becoming increasingly important due to their flexibility and scalability, as well as high-quality security and resilience standards.
“This coalition enables ING to adopt a hybrid cloud setup for analytics and AI, that brings us up to par with the fintechs and bigtechs of this world. It allows us to improve our digital capabilities and offer customers better, faster and more personalised experiences,” said Kerem Tomak, chief analytics officer and initiative lead at ING.
Secure cloud applications a priority for the ECUC
But for all the benefits that cloud technology brings, it also comes with risks, with security and regulation issues remaining a hurdle for banks in adopting the technology.
“Key components for making cloud technology work for banks are security, data privacy (GDPR) and EU guidelines from regulatory bodies like the European Banking Authority and the European Banking Federation. Data sovereignty and cybersecurity requirements are important aspects that need to be addressed,” explained Kerem.
The European Cloud User Coalition’s objective is to agree on security standards and best practices for the use of cloud technology and ensure, long term, that public cloud ecosystems are compliant. As a first step, the consortium will publish a paper on the requirements for cloud services in 2021, with all aspects of European regulation and data localisation provisions (including General Data Protection Regulation requirements) considered.
ING Private Cloud
An important part of ING’s cloud technology adoption is its ING Private Cloud (IPC), a digital platform used to store and process data and IT services such as mobile phone apps. It is one of the steps ING is taking to give customers a consistent experience in a secure and reliable way. IPC standardises the bank’s IT infrastructure, simplifies and streamlines existing processes, and brings an automated and self-service infrastructure to development and operations teams. ING currently runs 25 percent of its global infrastructure on IPC.