The conference, focused on the use of cloud in the financial services industry, saw over 200 technology decision makers gather to help bridge the cloud migration gap and hear a range of speakers offer actionable solutions to speed up their journey.

Here is a look back at the most crucial questions discussed at our 2023 Financial Cloud Summit:

What does a successful cloud strategy, migration and optimisation mean?

Kicking off the day, former Dragons’ Den dragon Piers Linney, entrepreneur and investor, founder and CEO of Moblox, set the scene for the conference, focusing on cloud strategy, migration and optimisation.

Linney explained that he has spent a lot of his time and experience in banking and finance fighting what he refers to as “FUD: fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Is cloud secure? What does it cost? Can you migrate to cloud? Do we have to wait for cloud to save the world before we choose the cloud?”

He went on to explain that change is no longer linear and is now exponential. The world is changing at a different pace and the customer is now dictating how banks decide to add value with their tech stack, which should be an enabler and technology decisions should not direct what financial institutions can and can’t do.

Successful cloud usage will separate the winners from the losers. By considering competition and establishing a holistic strategy, a migration plan or a rebuilding of infrastructure will ensure competitive advantage. However, “there is no end date on a software development project.”

Do you need cloud?

Discussing Cloud strategy, Avinash Kumar, product director, Temenos Banking Cloud, referenced a recent study where 72% of IT bank executives revealed that the cloud supports their organisation to achieve their business priorities.

Kumar reiterated that the cloud opens the door to stay differentiated, go to market with unique propositions and fight commoditisation. For the bottom line, the cloud also helps to operate with predictable cost and reduce total cost of ownership, which includes operating cost.

“Cloud and SaaS sits at the heart of any new banking model,” Kumar said, and went on to explain that banks must increase their top line and tap into new business propositions. Further, the only way that they can do this is by adopting open technology, which supports their intention of being secure, scalable, and resilient.

How to ensure security with the cloud?

Led by experts Stewart Davies, global SaaS commercial director at Temenos and Andy Sturrock, CTO at Atom Bank and moderated by Finextra reporter Niamh Curran, one of panels discussed how companies are aligning their partners with their cloud strategy and prioritising security.

Curran asked how institutions are outsourcing data to the cloud and how trust can be balanced with cloud providers. In response, Davies stated that building trust happens over time and there is a myriad of factors that are taken into consideration.

Sturrock stated that while it is risky placing trust into another organisation’s hands, there are measures in place to ensure that they are comfortable in the relationship. He states that at Atom, they possess encryption keys for everything that provides a level of comfort.

He expanded: “There was just a different way of doing security in the cloud. The old days used to have a big firewall on the outside and you will see that was going to keep everything all the intruders out. You have got to assume that that your network couldn't be breached and therefore you need to have certificates and authentication between all of your different micro services and all the different components and other aspects. But again, that's just kind of doing security in a modern way that we have evolved. I think if you do your API right, you can be as secure in the cloud as you can be.”

Learn more about Finextra’s Financial Cloud Summit and register here for 2024.