Cloud Computing Adoption in Financial Services: Motivators and De-Motivators

Financial services organisations have shown a significant interest in the adoption of emerging cloud business technologies. Based on my recent research, I identified the following four key motivators and five key de-motivators of cloud adoption in Financial Services.

Motivators:

·         Data Centre Scalability

·         Control on Sensitive Data –Private Cloud Initiatives

·         Data Centre Efficiencies –Public Cloud Initiatives

·         Future Downsize of Internal Data Centre –Public Cloud Initiatives

De-motivators:

·         Lack of Maturity and Understanding the Cloud

·         Cloud Additional Risks

·         Customer Information Regulatory Compliance

·         Local Banking and Financial Institutions Act Hurdles

·         Comingling of Data and Applications in a Multi-tenant Environment

These identified key motivators and de-motivators support or hinder the adoption of cloud in financial services. As opposed to a big bang, financial services organisations may consider an agile based iterative/ incremental  less risky approach to the  assessment and adoption of cloud business technologies for their  specific business services without putting their company, partners’  and customers’ information at risk. I will discuss Cloud Risks in detail in a separate post.

For details please also see my recently published following paper in cloud and green computing conference in Sydney, 2011.

“An Empirical Analysis of Cloud, Mobile, Social and Green Computing

Financial Services IT Strategy and Enterprise Architecture”