Digitalization continues to increasingly conquer the financial sector and is gladly welcomed by bank customers, especially the younger generations. For instance, Generation Z only knows how to function in a connected world: they purchase products online and on social media and the vast majority uses mobile banking apps.

Yet, in order to ensure the efficient provision of services and positive growth of the digital trend, there must be efficient regulations put in place. The latter concern open banking, real-time payment etc. Smart digital infrastructure helps banks consider open banking as an opportunity, rather than threat. The volumes of real-time digital payments are expected to increase significantly with the help of major centralization: account information and payment options are all found in one single app. Users get the opportunity to perform all of their day-to-day banking activity on secure and convenient platforms, powered by digital infrastructure. It must be stressed, though, that the latter will also result into increased amount of transactions and higher requirements. In order to manage data analytics efficiently, banks take advantage of cloud systems that become a great supplement to their on-site core systems. This also allows to mitigate the risks of financial crime and fraud as customer profiles and interactions are under strict monitoring.

Therefore, a comprehensive cloud service would become an ideal infrastructure, which enables fast end-to-end innovation and includes development and testing platforms. In order to explore their full potential and benefit from digital, banks are in need of an instrument that allows to deliver simple cloud-based apps, as well as sophisticated solutions. This is now possible through building cloud environments with the help of software-defined templates. Interactions become simpler and much more efficient, which also helps to optimize operation and make it more cost-efficient.

We must remember, that banks were not there to be IT professionals, their main task is to deal with banking. Cloud and digital end-to-end applications allow banks to maintain the focus on their main activity, without the need to be distracted by technical issues. Moreover, precise supervision from the regulators has decreased the risks around cloud and made entities more confident about using it.

Security, access and resilience are no longer principal concerns after complex encryption and data segregation were introduced, so banks become increasingly open to deploy the integrated digital strategy, with cloud at its core. This is the true advanced approach that will continue to foster innovation and enable the banking of the new generation.