Cloud Computing Shaping The Future of Fintech

Financial technologies are taking the business world by storm. The changing perception regarding traditional banking and lending demand for digital money transfers, payment processes, online lending, and online stock trading platforms in the last decade has seen a drastic shift. Innovative minds in the finance industry, which thrived on digital transformation, turned the industry into the next boom in technology—Fintech entrepreneurs are changing the culture with innovative ideas that ease the money-related problems of our daily lives.

Fintech startups embrace every form of technology like never before to create an efficient and effective financial system. Cloud technology is one of them, sending shockwaves to the fintech sector. Fintech cloud services providers are making the most of cloud computing. Cloud computing allows banks and Fintech businesses to innovate and enable them to reduce their operating and compliance costs. It improves the financial sector's competitiveness and efficiency, which benefits customers.

How Cloud Computing Revolutionizing Fintech Industry

Cloud computing is a trending technology running in the veins of fintech startups as the benefits solve many of the complex problems of financial requirements. Integrating technology into any traditional business itself is a competitive advantage, and cloud technology brings enormous advantages to the business world.

The Cloud comes with high security, speedy service, innovative processes, and never-ending scalability in the financial sector. Cloud has contributed 23.84 percent to the predicted compound annual growth rate.

Why does the fintech industry crave cloud tech, and what makes it the most appealing technology in the industry?

In the era of competition, most financial startups and big fat financial organizations are running towards integrating tech to offer more speed, 24*7 connectivity, data security, reliability, and flexibility to their customers.

Effective Data Management  - A cloud-based data management system allows modification in the data compared to traditional data systems. As fintech enterprises become more cloud-centric, it is essential to select the correct tools and processes as new financial activities arise, like crypto exchange platforms, crowdfunding, online banking, money-saving apps, etc. They perform various activities, from account management to verifying identities, displaying live trading, displaying bank or wallet balances, and analyzing spending habits.

Cloud computing enables organizations to store, manage, and access data at a considerable level facilitating high security, space flexibility, and cost-effectiveness autonomously, from anywhere, at any time.

Automated Analysis - Cloud system built-in with the feature of performing autonomous tasks preset by the organization's system such as automatic analysis of security parameters, testing of web applications, automated provisions for a data breach, and more. 

Disruptive technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and more will liberate financial players because the cloud can improve platform integrity through automated security processes and controls.

Cloud systems accelerate the automatic process to perform specialized tasks like banking, credit scoring, and fraud detection quickly and smoothly.

Business Continuity - Business continuity can only be successful when you have access to your crucial data all the time, not only in performing general tasks but also in emergency cases.

Fintech deals with very decisive activities like money lending, banking, payments, and trading, which needs foolproof recovery plans for contingencies of data loss to ensure that your business can continue even as it recovers from disaster safely.

Cloud computing in Fintech has benefited from the resilience the cloud offers and protects its critical capabilities. Moreover, the data saved in the cloud is encrypted to eliminate hacks and significant security threats.

Progressive Innovation - The fintech industry's innovation has been boosted by the agility that cloud computing technology brings to the table. Cloud computing in fintech enables financial institutions to develop and market products more quickly while also responding fast to shifting demands and emerging trends. The Covid-19 outbreak posed numerous hurdles for the fintech industry, and cloud computing has aided financial services organizations quickly and easily.

Proven Security features - Intense Integrated Security System is one of the reasons why fintech embraces cloud technology. Financial information is very crucial; security is an obvious thing to do as a priority. Therefore, because of the highly secure environment of cloud technology, fintech leaders can rest assured that their data is safe.

As per the Information Age report, approximately 42% of financial institutes don't have room for secure data, making it alarming. In traditional IT infrastructure, they can run the risk of cyberattacks to virus threats and emails; likewise, implementing cloud technologies can provide the same level of security like high resilience through its security infrastructure.

Moreover, Zero-Trust verification and encrypted data have improved the security quality of cloud technology. Adoption of new technology along with advancements will ensure fintech entities that their systems have adequate measures in place.

Reduced Operational Cost - Because of the reasons stated above, it is painfully evident how expensive operational expenditures might become. Cloud services are incredibly inexpensive compared to setting up and maintaining all the necessary infrastructures. No additional resources, time, or energy must be invested in resource management and data storage. As a result, using cloud computing in fintech can help organizations save money on system development and instead invest it in improving and upgrading its essential services.

Greater Scalability & Flexibility - Fintech companies identify the need for online secure financial transactions among people and have become one of the fastest-growing sectors in the tech industry. Therefore, they need the environment and infrastructure in favor of them to achieve the ultimate business goals without putting up unnecessary barriers or challenges to create hindrances in their passage of progress. The agility feature of cloud technology shakes hands with fintech to scale up the business quickly while saving costs for setting up on-premises infrastructure and its upgrading and maintenance costs.

You can see the level of flexibility the cloud platform provides to traditional banking structures by delivering the flexibility to adjust to branch closures while continuing to serve as many customers as feasible.

Serve Customers Faster and Build Strong Relationships - Cloud technology makes it convenient and easier to strategize the development and launch of innovative products and services, which is a bar in the financial industry that the industry has been reluctant to respond to changing client needs.

Banks may better understand their customers because of the cloud's mix of massive data and possibly infinite computing capacity than ever before. Finance firms who pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create highly tailored systems to their customers' needs will pay the price by losing key demographics.

Cloud computing ensures that the service is always operational to its maximum potential, and the client receives far superior service overall. This means the corporation can concentrate on customer care on their end of the line and provide more incredible help to the consumers that require it.

Providing Relevant Customer Insights to Banks - The current banking business is more competitive than ever, with challenger banks and fintech specializing in specialized financial verticals giving traditional financial institutions a run. Customers had already become more demanding regarding the kind of financial service they expect. As a result, banks are up against unprecedented competition from conventional banks and the still-burgeoning alternative finance industry, including fintech and challenger banks. The exponential growth of data and cloud technologies to provide granular, deep, and rich customer insights are two essential elements driving this competition.

The pandemic raised the bar even higher. If banks fail to satisfy customer expectations, customers, particularly generation-Z and millennials, will seek out another financial service provider who will.

To meet this demand, banks need to expand their use of cloud-based, data-efficient services across their entire company. Proactive banks have already identified laborious and inefficient procedures within their operations and business models, which cloud technology can quickly improve.

Improve business efficiency - Changing the blueprint of existing tech architectures by incorporating the cloud will improve the efficiency of operations by streamlining them and leveraging functionalities for better performance.

If you're a large organization operating at multiple locations with numerous target demographics, you must optimize the business process to retain a high-efficiency level.

The critical function of cloud computing in fintech in improving operational efficiency is the potential to analyze and anticipate relevant customer insights based on market data. Financial services firms who use this strategy effectively obtain an advantage over their competitors by effortlessly navigating new market breakthroughs and advancements.

Best Practices for Selecting Fintech Cloud Service Providers

The specific requirements of banking and fintech are data documentation, keeping data in high-security walls, and sharing the information to make a quick shift for cloud adoption. It would be best to consider a few things related to technology before selecting a reliable service provider for the cloud transition.

• Encryption and access control - Significantly ask about the policies and process of data encryption with your fintech cloud space provider to understand what technology infrastructure you need for it and how they can protect the crucial financial data you transmit.

• Data segregation and management - Access to centralized data and sharing features allows organizations to shift to the cloud but due to security concerns, they are looking for data segregation and sharing resource benefits.

• System failure recovery plan - Make sure that your service provider offers you a system integrated with backup plans in case of a system shutdown or any loss of information. It is essential to have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan and ensure your digital infrastructure supports it.

• Compliance - The laws and regulations of cloud-delivered systems should be compatible with your business system. It would be good if you asked providers to provide detailed documentation of the required compliance certificates for the cloud services.

Conclusion

Tech-savvy financial organizations have realized the opportunity for agility in cloud technology and how they can help them capture the lion's share in their sector. Today, cloud computing spreads its reach to the fintech industry by developing and providing innovative products and services, establishing seamless interaction with clients, increasing revenue while partnering with inter-related organizations. So, understand the reach of the cloud.

The cost and efficiency differences between renting cloud services and having physical hardware that processes all of your data are enormous. Businesses that incorporate cloud technology into their services gain from increased security, reliability, scalability, efficiency, access to a much larger infrastructure, and a variety of other benefits as a result.

The fintech industry benefited from migrating existing system processes to the cloud by developing a more flexible and customer-centric model to generate profit and facilitate growth.