TECHNOLOGY
Outsourcing to the cloud But the vast majority of Lean and Agile technology benefits would not be possible without the switch to cloud and all the advantages it offers businesses . Cloud adoption has offered fintechs the possibility to speed up innovation and launch faster business applications without taking up a large investment on the required underlying infrastructure .
“ They can leverage cloud computing and run their business efficiently scaling the infrastructure and associated costs alongside their business ,” points out Costea . “ This ensures that they can focus on delivering value to the end customers and offer better products and services at lower operating costs .”
She believes banks and fintechs have gained much more flexibility and agility by taking advantage of the cloud embedded services on infrastructure , data management , security , scalability , automation , fast computing and analysis , AI-enabled cognitive services and machine learning . “ Using cloud service providers , banks and fintechs can scale their business to respond to a higher user demand much faster and easier ,” she says .
“ Some of these systems have become so large , so fundamental , that they ’ re incredibly hard for the brand to shift away from ”
STEVE STRICKLAND-WRIGHT CTO , FLUENT MONEY GROUP
Andrew Barnett , Global Head of Product Strategy ,
RIMES , agrees . Although , he says that cloud is just one of the technologies companies can use to innovate and become agile . However , he believes that out-of-the-box commercial solutions may not always be the best offering for a scaling company . Rather , having a say in tailoring a product is important .
“ I would suggest that most organisations see the primary suppliers as key infrastructure rather than the innovation themselves . The cloud infrastructure and their portfolio of growing tools offer rapid access to ideation , prototyping and iteration – but be wary of their commercial model and identify how you scale the innovation into a commercial and serviceable product .”
The benefits to using cloud solutions are undeniable , however . Most financial service companies use cloud-based software in the form of SaaS for non-core processes , such as customer relationship management ( CRM ) and accounting . “ Look for consumer payments , credit scoring , and even