AFME urges faster adoption of cloud computing in capital markets

The recommendations for banks, cloud providers, regulators, and the industry as a whole aim to increase the transparency and collaboration required to build further confidence, trust and capability in public cloud.

James Kemp, managing director, head of technology and operations at AFME, says: “The use of public cloud in financial services offers significant opportunities and benefits for all parties. However, to realise these and increase adoption it is vital that the whole industry, including banks, cloud providers and regulators, continue to collaborate. This includes ensuring the knowledge, skills, security and risks are appropriately assessed and identified throughout this long-term transformation.”

While AFME members identify ample benefits in business agility and innovation, improved cost management and efficiency, and enhanced client experience and service offerings, the paper finds that banks are still at an early stage of adoption. Over two-thirds of AFME members involved in discussions estimated that only one to 10% of their bank’s current workload was using some level of public cloud today.

Popular use cases include, capacity bursting; running sophisticated data analytics for detecting market abuse; supporting innovation projects , and improving resiliency.

In order to support continued public cloud adoption, AFME proposes 14 recommendations for banks, cloud providers, regulators, and the industry as a whole, with 4 key themes emerging: