Twitter, UPS, Paypal, Goldman Sachs, Etsy, Instagram, Netflix, NASA, Sony, Airbnb, and the list seems endless with the top brands using Cloud computing technology.

Come, let’s have an overview of what exactly is cloud computing, the startups, the big players, features, benefits, examples, future and how can Fintech companies select a Cloud Service Provider.

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What is Cloud Computing?

With the accessibility of the internet, people and businesses are now able to utilize an array of computing capabilities, like servers, storage, databases, networking, software, and more due to a revolutionary technology called cloud computing. This implies that businesses can rent access from a cloud service provider, greatly cutting costs and improving operational flexibility, in place of maintaining actual servers and tools.

Types of Cloud Computing

• Platforms as a Service (PaaS)
• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• Software as a service (SaaS)
• Everything as a service (XaaS)
• Function as a Service (FaaS)

Read: Intent Latest Whitepaper on 2024 Data Engineering Trends & Predictions

Fintech Exclusive Industry Insight

We have an exclusive insight from a renowned industry veteran Dr Jane Thomason, a Section Chief Editor Web3 & Metaverse, Frontiers in Blockchain | Women Investors in Deep Tech| Web3.0 Leader of the Year Eurasia 2023 | Top 10 Thought Leader Blockchain, MedTech, Sustainability.

Fintech, Security, and Decentralized Cloud

A key challenge in the rapidly evolving fintech evolution is ensuring robust security, especially as cyber threats grow more sophisticated. Traditional security measures are often insufficient to safeguard sensitive financial data, leading to a shift toward more advanced, decentralised solutions.

Decentralised cloud computing is a blockchain network architecture that creates a digital peer-to-peer marketplace for cloud computing, networking, and storage. It plays a crucial role in enhancing fintech security. By distributing data and processes across multiple nodes rather than relying on a single centralised server, decentralised cloud infrastructure minimises the risk of data breaches and system failures. It offers increased resilience, ensuring continuous operation even if one part of the system is compromised.

Decentralisation also enhances privacy by reducing the control any single entity has over user data. This aligns with the financial industry’s need for secure, reliable, and scalable solutions. As fintech continues to grow, integrating decentralised cloud technologies will be essential in addressing security challenges while fostering innovation and trust in digital financial services.

Examples of Fintech Innovations in the Real World That Use Cloud Computing

• Mobile Payment Platform: Cloud computing is used by prominent fintech business Square to handle millions of transactions on its platform. Square can easily handle varying transaction volumes by hosting its services on the cloud, guaranteeing that consumer payments are completed swiftly and securely. Square can expand its services worldwide and accept a variety of currencies and payment methods without having to invest in a large amount of new infrastructure thanks to the cloud.

• Personal Finance Management Tool: Mint gives consumers access to real-time financial information by utilizing cloud-based technologies. Mint can securely compile data from many financial institutions and offer its users individualized financial advice thanks to the cloud. This application shows how cloud computing can handle intricate data analytics and offer useful services that improve customers’ ability to manage their finances.

• Blockchain-Powered Lending Service: Figure Technologies has used blockchain technology housed on cloud infrastructures to completely transform the home equity line of credit (HELOC) market. Compared to conventional banking systems, their platform, which is based on the Provenance blockchain, enables quicker loan approval processes and lower expenses. The cloud infrastructure guarantees that all transactions are safe and adhere to financial standards while meeting the high processing demands of blockchain technology.

• Cloud computing’s incorporation into fintech web development has revolutionized not just how businesses run, but also how they innovate and grow. Future predictions indicate that cloud computing will only grow stronger, more secure, and more effective, and these developments will benefit the financial industry as a whole. It will be crucial for fintech businesses to adopt these cloud computing technologies if they want to remain inventive and competitive.

Read :Top 5 Reasons Why Sysdig Is Used by Goldman Sachs

Why Fintech Companies Should Use Cloud Services?

• The capacity to delegate infrastructure administration to professionals while concentrating on essential business operations.

• Excellent security and dependability without requiring capital investment thanks to the use of market-leading solutions.

• Fintech companies can meet their clients’ changing needs and guarantee application uptime without any interruptions or downtime thanks to auto-scaling features.

• Strict adherence to industry standards, such as PCI DSS, and the protection of sensitive financial data through frequent security updates, compliance checks, and data backups.

• Uses techniques such as data segregation, zero-trust verification, data encryption, and access control to ensure Fintech cloud security.

Statistics

1. Over half of enterprises are struggling to see cloud ROI (Source: PwC)
2. 58.7% of IT spending is still traditional but cloud-based spending will soon outpace it (Source: Gartner)
3. Cloud adoption among enterprise organizations is over 94% (Source: RightScale)
4. Over 50% of SMEs technology budget will go to cloud spend in 2023 (Source: Zesty)
5. 42% of CIOs and CTOs consider cloud waste the top challenge (Source: Zesty)

How Can Fintech Companies Select a Cloud Service Provider?

1. Assessing the security of a cloud provider is essential for dependable and safe corporate operations. Before selecting the Fintech cloud service provider, take into account and assess the following important factors.
2. Industry Standards and Compliance: Verify adherence to ISO certifications and data privacy frameworks, including SOC, HIPAA, CCPA, GDPR, and others.
3. Authentication and Access Controls: Seek for infallible identity controls including single sign-on, biometric authentication, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and real-time identity monitoring systems.
4. Choose between fully-managed and self-managed services by finding out if the cloud provider offers either type of service. All cloud resources are handled by the cloud vendor, who also configures, scales, optimizes, and manages them all. Managing and configuring virtual machines (VMs) will be your responsibility in self-managed services.
5. Scalability of Resources: Choosing a cloud service that provides smooth and efficient resource scaling to satisfy changing business requirements is essential for dependable operations.
6. Data Segregation: For vital company information and data assets, fintech data frequently needs data segregation. Examine how cloud service providers balance shared and separated resources to guarantee secure functionality.
7. Evaluate the Fintech cloud service provider’s disaster recovery and data backup plan carefully to be sure they can successfully back up your sensitive data and information.

Read: Top 10 Neobank Companies of the Fintech World

Top 10 Cloud Services Providers for Fintech

1. Amazon AWS cloud
2. Microsoft Azure
3. Google Cloud Platform
4. Dell
5. IBM Cloud Services
6. Salesforce
7. Oracle Cloud
8. Huawei Cloud
9. Alibaba Cloud
10. ​​​​​​​Tencent Cloud

1. AWS, or Amazon Web Services

Providing more than 200 feature-rich services from data centers across the globe, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the most extensive and popular cloud platform available today. To meet the demands of many businesses, it integrates Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and packaged Software as a Service (SaaS) products.

In the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Services, AWS was ranked as a top leader due to its extensive tool and service offering and user-friendly interface.

Services offered: Almost all corporate needs, including database administration, computation, application development, infrastructure management, and security, can be met by Amazon Web Services. Virtual Private Cloud, AWS Data Transfer, Simple Storage Service, Elastic Compute Cloud, and AWS Key Management Service are just a few of the hundreds of services offered by AWS.

As of right now, AWS operates in more than 245 countries over 26 regions and 84 availability zones. AWS comes with several built-in security services, including identity and access control, infrastructure security, inventory and configuration, data encryption, DDoS mitigation, monitoring, and logging. Furthermore, it can take pride in possessing over 40 compliance certifications, both nationally and internationally. Instagram, Netflix, NASA, Sony, and Airbnb businesses utilize it.

AWS offers more services than any other company to companies at a “pay as you use” rate; you only pay for the services you use. Additionally, there is a section on their website called “Free tier service” where you can sign up for a free 12-month offer or browse services that AWS provides to its users completely for free.

2. Microsoft Azure

Launched in 2010, Microsoft Azure came years after AWS and Google Cloud. On the other hand, due to its speedy expansion, it has emerged as one of the leading cloud providers. In the first quarter of 2022, Microsoft Azure revenue increased by 50% year over year, matching the 51% revenue growth of the previous quarter.

Azure offers more than 200 built-in products and services spanning several categories, including networking, hybrid cloud, Internet of Things, AI and machine learning, and developer tools. Additionally, Azure can be easily linked with Office 365 and all other Microsoft products. Azure is offered in 140 countries and territories, dispersed across 58 regions with specialized infrastructure each. There are three availability zones at the very least in each region.

One of the numerous services Azure offers its customers is a cutting-edge security system that adheres to the ADADSC paradigm, which stands for Detect, Assess, Diagnose, Stabilize, and Close. They have more than 90 compliance certifications for IaaS security because of their strong requirements.

Verizon, Adobe, HP, Marc Jacobs, and Symantec Corporation are among the businesses that utilize it. Microsoft’s client list is rather extensive—1,239 case studies are listed on their website. Azure distinguishes itself from competitors with a service level agreement (SLA) of 99.95%, or around 4.38 hours of downtime annually. Another big plus is that our cloud platform has more security certifications than any other.

3. Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform (GCP), the smallest of the three platforms, with fewer data centers and a more constrained range of services than AWS and Azure. It excels, meanwhile, at offering clients highly specialized services in three primary domains: analytics, machine learning, and big data, together with strong load balancing and scalability.

Google Cloud provides organizations with more than 90 services, spanning from networking and analytics capabilities to computer and storage solutions. Cloud-based versions of G Suite, Google Maps Platform, Google Hardware, Google Identity, and Chrome Enterprise are also accessible. More than 200 nations, 29 regions, and 88 zones provide Google Cloud Services.

Virtual Private Cloud, Data Encryption, Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Data Loss Prevention, Anti-DDoS, WAF, anti-bot, and API protection for web and API are just a few of the many built-in cloud security solutions that GCP offers.

A wealth of cutting-edge machine learning services, as well as superior data analytics and storage capabilities. Additionally, the platform is easily connected with other Google services.

4: Dell Technologies

Headquarters: United States, Round Rock, Texas

Michael Dell is the CEO.

With a standardized management interface, Dell Technologies Cloud is a hybrid cloud solution that streamlines operations and boosts cloud economics. With support for all major cloud providers and a single cloud vendor experience, it provides customized cloud solutions. More than 4,200 well-known cloud service providers, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, are supported by Dell’s cloud platform.

Meanwhile, Dell Technologies’ APEX solution takes advantage of its experience to offer businesses an easy and safe way to implement hybrid cloud infrastructure.

5: Salesforce

Headquarters: United States, California, San Francisco

Marc Benioff, CEO

Salesforce is a cloud infrastructure company that focuses on providing software for customer relationship management (CRM). With the help of its Sales Cloud service, salespeople can access real-time customer data, forecasting, AI-powered insights, lead generation, and more on a single platform while continuing to work as usual. The business has just made new AI-powered solutions for Sales Cloud generally available. These solutions automatically generate client emails, call summaries, account research, and other tasks, integrating reliable generative AI into daily operations.

6. IBM Cloud

Headquarters: United States, New York

Arvind Krishna, CEO

To fully utilize cloud and AI, IBM Cloud provides industry-leading security, corporate scalability, and open innovation. Platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) are combined by the IBM Cloud platform to offer an integrated experience.

With a next-generation hybrid cloud platform, advanced data and AI capabilities, and deep enterprise expertise across 20 industries, IBM Cloud offers the most open and secure public cloud for business. It is available in data centers worldwide and has multizone regions in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

7. Oracle Cloud

Headquarters: United States, Austin, Texas

Safra Catz is the CEO.

Offering servers, storage, networks, apps, and services via a global network of Oracle-managed data centers, Oracle Cloud is a cloud computing service provided by Oracle Corporation. According to Oracle, this is the first public cloud that was created from the ground up to be superior for all types of applications. With 41 accessible cloud regions and nine more on the horizon, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) has the fastest-growing worldwide data center network along with over 100 cloud infrastructure and platform services.

8. Huawei Cloud

Head Office: China’s Shenzhen

Zhang Ping’an is the CEO.

Expanding upon its three decades of ICT and digitalization experience, Huawei Cloud offers fully connected, fast, and reliable networks and services across many availability zones globally. China Internet Watch reports that in 2021, Huawei Cloud has an 18% market share in China’s cloud infrastructure service spending.

9. Tencent Cloud

Head Office: China’s Shenzhen

Dowson Tong is the CEO.

Tencent, the biggest Internet provider in China, offers Tencent Cloud, a high-performance, dependable, and safe cloud computing solution. Tencent Cloud uses technical innovations such as cloud computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and network security to offer enterprises worldwide dependable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services.

Tencent serves hundreds of millions of people through its major products, WeChat and QQ, and has over one billion users.

10. Alibaba Cloud

Head office: China’s Hangzhou

Eddie Wu, CEO

Alibaba Cloud, one of the biggest cloud computing companies globally, creates highly scalable cloud computing and data management services that offer flexible and affordable solutions to meet the networking and information needs of small and large businesses, financial institutions, governments, and other organizations.

Alibaba Cloud, a division of Alibaba Group, provides a full range of cloud computing services to assist sellers and other third-party organizations involved in the ecosystem, as well as running the network that drives Alibaba Group’s massive online and mobile commerce ecosystem.

Read: Top 5 Strategies for Cloud Security Regulations in Financial Services by Sysdig

Fintech Cloud Startups

1. Billie makes managing invoices easier.

Year of Founding: 2017

Location: Switzerland’s Adliswil

Collaborate on Digital Billing with Billte

A Swiss business called Billte provides a platform for managing invoices to streamline billing procedures. It creates e-bills and bills with QR codes from unstructured invoices. The technology then sends automated reminders, creates real-time reports, and distributes bills via a variety of methods, including email and SMS. Additionally, it tracks partial payments made in several currencies, which helps small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) be more efficient and liquid.

2.ZenTreasury aids Treasury Management

Year of Founding: 2016

Where: Finland’s Espoo

Work Together for Transaction Audits with ZenTreasury

A Finnish business called ZenTreasury is creating a cloud-based platform for managing treasury. Depending on the type of contract, portfolio, and counterparty, it offers several accounting methodologies. The platform logs all transactions with dates and timestamps and provides a streamlined audit process. It also makes it possible for companies to handle transactions in international currencies.

3.Form3 provides Cloud-native Payments

Year of Founding: 2016

Place: London, United Kingdom

To inquire about Payments-as-a-Service (PaaS), contact FORM3.

A UK-based firm called Form3 creates payment solutions. Through an application programming interface (API), its end-to-end managed payments service for banks and regulated fintechs provides full payment processing, clearing, and settlement. The cloud platform protects users against legislative changes and relieves them of the burden of maintaining security, compliance, and back-office payment infrastructure.

4.OuroX Enables Digital Asset Transfer

Year of Founding: 2018

Place: Doral, USA

Utilize OuroX’s cryptocurrency exchange solution.

OuroX is a US-based firm that uses blockchain, AI, machine learning, and cloud computing to promote economic growth and financial inclusion. It creates a platform for exchanging digital assets and provides services for converting cryptocurrency to fiat, cryptocurrency to crypto, and fiat to crypto. Users can also send, receive, and store cryptocurrencies using its mobile-based cryptocurrency payment wallet. Additionally, it enables cheaper cross-border payments.

5. Sysnik advances Cloud-enabled Banking

Year of Founding: 2016

Place: Pune, India

Get in touch with Sysnik to automate financial processes.

An Indian firm called Sysnik automates procedures in the financial services and banking industry. With the ability to self-manage changes in customer composition, competitive landscape, or regulatory restrictions, banks can make use of the startup’s cloud-enabled offering, SYS-CORE. Additionally, through supported processes, its modules, workflows, and reports improve customer experience, and efficiency, lower risks, and improve outcomes.

Conclusion

The public cloud provider you choose will rely on your demands and workload. In the competition for cloud dominance, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are almost tied because they both provide comparable goods, services, and costs. On the other hand, cloud services like Alibaba, IBM, and Google are constantly getting better.

It’s wise to consider the tools you frequently utilize in this situation. For instance, Azure is a great choice for businesses that utilize a lot of Windows and Microsoft products. If you need to scale your web startup quickly, you should consider looking into the Google Cloud Platform. Additionally, AWS can be the ideal option if you require a provider with a broad range of services and a global presence. Compare the three possibilities, get a price if necessary, and select the one that best suits your needs.

Read: Fintech Marketing: Top 10 Power Strategies to Accelerate Growth

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