Posted by Mumbai: Financial firms across Asia intend to rapidly increase their investment in public cloud to exploit the benefits of the cloud in managing the financial data that powers their business decisions, according to a new global survey of senior technologists and market data managers in the financial services sector. In the survey from the Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters, Asian respondents said their firms would be increasing investment in public cloud by nearly a half, from 32% of IT budgets in 2017 to 46% in 2019. This is in line with the global findings of the survey.
86% of firms surveyed in Asia say they will use public cloud for the majority of their market data needs in less than four years. While this is slightly below the global average of 90%, over a quarter (27%) expect to use public cloud for the majority of their market data needs within just one year – ahead of the global average of 24%. Financial firms are fuelled by data, whether to discover profitable new insights or to help them automate their reporting processes and manage costs at a time of intense regulatory pressure.
“The cloud offers a powerful set of tools for the financial community to manage their data needs, and opens up new opportunities to combine public and proprietary data at massive scale with tools like AI and machine learning to solve any number of problems,” said Brennan Carley, Global Head – Enterprise Proposition & Product for the Financial & Risk business at Thomson Reuters. “Financial firms of all sizes can be more agile and innovative using the cloud, as they test investment strategies and enter new markets more quickly.”
“Given the twin challenges of sensitive data and increased regulation, financial services firms in Asia and globally have been understandably cautious about adopting public cloud compared to those in other industries,” said Gautam Verma, Head – Market Development for Enterprise, Asia, for the Financial & Risk business at Thomson Reuters. “Our survey clearly shows how that situation is changing, however, with firms clearly accelerating their plans as they realise how leveraging the cloud across their market data infrastructure can help them move faster, grow their business, reduce their costs and better manage their risks.”
The survey consisted of telephone interviews with 250 senior figures across buy- and sell-side financial institutions, in the roles of Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Data Officers (CDOs) and Heads of Market Data. It was a global survey, with respondents split equally between North America, Europe and APAC.