[ I N D E P T H | T H E C L O U D ]
“ Given how much capital markets infrastructure can and does run on the cloud , there are very few workloads that we haven ’ t seen migrate .”
JOHN KAIN , HEAD OF WORLDWIDE FINANCIAL SERVICES MARKET DEVELOPMENT AT AWS
A method to the madness Across the entire trading ecosystem , from exchanges to firms themselves , a trend has emerged wherein players are locked into a competitive race to migrate at least some part of their work to the cloud , conscious of the risk of falling behind .
Key benefits associated with financial markets infrastructure moving to the cloud , as highlighted in a recent AWS whitepaper from January this year , include lower barriers to entry when launching new markets globally - in part due to standardisation and harmonisation , the potential to run 24 / 7 operations , a gateway to ever-more innovative technology , cost reduction , and of course , increased operational efficiency .
However , despite these benefits , the unavoidable fact is that legacy systems were built in a different time , and operations are steeped in historical processes and data . This therefore requires intense investment and attention – needing to be upgraded and altered at a rapid pace – in order to allow market players to empirically execute their goals .
Demonstrably , cloud providers appear of course only too happy to help , having upped their involvement in the capital markets space in recent times .
Speaking to The TRADE , Rohit Bhat , Google Cloud ’ s managing director for capital markets , exchanges , and digital assets , explains that from his side one of the key focal points was around deeper collaborations with the institutions that represent the value chain of capital markets in order to play a part in the future development of the industry .
“ There ’ s a real opportunity to move the needle on how these markets will evolve over the next decade or even next two decades […] Our approach is truly around collaborating directly with the players that can make a difference in this particular space of financial services .
“ We ' re really taking the approach of supporting the market , with the venues that are taking a hard look at not just driving costs , but really levelling up and growing in the market through the potential of cloud – we want to be there to help support that .”
This is a key argument across the market , wherein playing a central part in the development of financial operations presents a prime opportunity to have a say , akin to industry agenda-setters .
In a similar vein , John Kain , head of worldwide financial services market development at AWS tells The TRADE that the increasing establishment of formal partnerships between the major exchanges and cloud services providers in recent times is focused on the creation of a more interconnected , and thus resilient , future .
“ Nasdaq continues to work closely with AWS to advance the modernisation of markets by driving innovation in the underlying infrastructure that power markets to deliver
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