Today, the cloud is already driving the expansion of Raiffeisen Bank International. Tomorrow, it will become the growth engine for the entire financial industry in Poland.
Adapting to new customer expectations, national and EU regulations, macroeconomic changes, as well as cyber security and competition from fintechs. The financial industry faces a number of challenges and needs to fully embrace cloud computing if it is to meet them.
This is well understood by Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), which is boldly innovating with cloud technology to grow faster and gain market leadership. This is happening with the operational and strategic support of PwC's Cloud Transformation team.
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Watch the video case study where Marek Chlebicki, Head of IT Strategy and Transformation Department at RBI Group, Michal Kurowski, Director of the IT Group Transformation Programme at RBI, Mariusz Chudy, Partner at PwC and Przemek Szuder General Manager of Amazon Web Services in Central and Eastern Europe talk about Raiffeisen Bank's cloud transformation.
“Banking's attachment to fixed infrastructure is high. We have taken the opposite direction. By the end of the year, we will place at least 50 per cent of our applications in the public cloud. The main objective of the migration is neither cost optimisation nor even increasing the scale of available computing power, but rather the possibility of creating a modern, efficient and flexible IT environment.”
“Banking's attachment to fixed infrastructure is high. We have taken the opposite direction. By the end of the year, we will place at least 50 per cent of our applications in the public cloud. The main objective of the migration is neither cost optimisation nor even increasing the scale of available computing power, but rather the possibility of creating a modern, efficient and flexible IT environment.”
How is cloud transformation organised at the RBI?
Raiffeisen Bank International is moving eight of its branches to the cloud at the same time. They operate in different countries, i.e. in different regulatory environments, which demonstrates the momentum and complexity of the project.
The transformation has been built as a consistent process from strategy definition to scaled implementation. The basis is the group's cloud strategy, which defined ambitious transformation goals at group and each bank level. It was the one that provided the impetus for the subsequent transformation and allowed a methodical transition from the analysis of the full application portfolio, through the first pilot migrations and later the pre-qualification of the application portfolio for the cloud, to individual projects with each bank defining the target solution architectures. The engineering work then proceeded without delay.
The operationalisation of the strategy was also a key objective. The aim of the analysis phase was to build a migration backlog as soon as possible, a financial analysis of the end-to-end transformation and to ensure that the banks and group technology centres had competent people on board to carry out the planned work. RBI started implementation immediately and is therefore already benefiting from the migration.
“"The decision for cloud transformation was a strategic one. We decided with the board that we didn't want to think twice with every application about moving it to the cloud. We created a kind of roadmap: a set of procedures, instructions and guidelines on how to proceed with technology implementations. We consistently stick to the agreements made once and for all. Such a systematic and global approach greatly simplifies and accelerates any digital initiatives."
"The decision for cloud transformation was a strategic one. We decided with the board that we didn't want to think twice with every application about moving it to the cloud. We created a kind of roadmap: a set of procedures, instructions and guidelines on how to proceed with technology implementations. We consistently stick to the agreements made once and for all. Such a systematic and global approach greatly simplifies and accelerates any digital initiatives."
Benefits from the cloud
The biggest benefits include accelerated time-to-market for new products and services and greater transparency. Cloud allows software to be developed and made available to customers quickly
Greater cost transparency - the cloud gives you full, transparent and unambiguous information about how your software is performing and what costs it is incurring - allowing you to be aware of the situation and react to changes immediately
Creates a better workplace for architects and engineers
The cloud is an effective way to make the financial sector more resilient, which includes increasing cyber security and streamlining processes
The ability to offer newer and more advanced services to customers
The cloud is the future of the financial sector
65% of financial institutions rate their cloud maturity as low. In comparison: more than half of retail companies consider their cloud sophistication to be high or medium, according to the PwC Polska report 'Cloud and its value. Expectations vs. reality: results for the financial sector'.
Many financial institutions use the cloud selectively. They move a small number of their processes to it, and usually the less important ones. This approach means that cloud investments do not deliver the expected business results. Projects are often limited to placing remote working tools, management reporting or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems in the cloud. According to PwC research, it is only after 40% of systems have been migrated that banks can achieve cost efficiencies, optimise themselves and realise benefits.
Another problem is the perception of the public cloud mainly or only in the perspective of savings. The public cloud is useful when the infrastructure is under greater strain. For two-thirds of respondents, cost optimisation is the primary objective of cloud transformation. Other advantages of migration include ensuring business continuity, increasing resilience and flexibility of operations or accelerating time to market for new products and services.
Regulators have for years been reluctant to embrace cloud computing in the financial sector, as well as some bank executives. Today, those who say: we don't want to experiment are in the minority.
The new industry mantra is: the cloud is the future of finance!
But there is a long way from declaration to investment.
"On average, digital leaders in the financial industry achieve 19 per cent higher profits than those who have not yet migrated to the cloud. They also report three times fewer critical infrastructure breakdowns. Conclusion: cloud computing pays off, but you need to exceed the minimum threshold of 40 per cent of systems moved to the cloud"
"On average, digital leaders in the financial industry achieve 19 per cent higher profits than those who have not yet migrated to the cloud. They also report three times fewer critical infrastructure breakdowns. Conclusion: cloud computing pays off, but you need to exceed the minimum threshold of 40 per cent of systems moved to the cloud"
PwC supports Raiffeisen Bank's cloud transformation
Polish banks and organisations offering similar services are just embarking on the adventure of digital transformation and have a lot of catching up to do, especially when compared with other industries.
Already, the development of such services at PwC is among the company's priorities. PwC has significantly expanded its team of Cloud experts. It plans to reach 500 people in the next few years. There are already more than 2,000 technology specialists for IT services at PwC Polska.
The values that cloud providers bring
"The cloud benefits every organisation and company that uses it. A study carried out on our behalf shows that greater cloud adoption and meeting the EU's 'Road to the Digital Decade' plan could add an additional PLN 491 billion to Poland's GDP by 2030. These benefits are also recognised by banks of all sizes that are accelerating innovation through the cloud,"
"The cloud benefits every organisation and company that uses it. A study carried out on our behalf shows that greater cloud adoption and meeting the EU's 'Road to the Digital Decade' plan could add an additional PLN 491 billion to Poland's GDP by 2030. These benefits are also recognised by banks of all sizes that are accelerating innovation through the cloud,"
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