Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft Corporation announced a three-year strategic partnership to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation through a cloud-first strategy on Aug. 10, Tuesday.
The partnership will be using Microsoft Azure as the preferred cloud platform to meet the bank’s need for resilient data centers, cloud services, and addressing customer security, privacy, and compliance requirements across the bank’s global footprint.
“The speed and scale of continuous innovation offered by Azure allows us to innovate with the latest AI services to meet evolving client needs,” Standard Chartered Cloud Transformation Chief Technology Officer Bhupendra Warathe said in a statement.
Standard Chartered will use Microsoft Azure’s artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities to enhance and automate banking processes and deliver hyper-personalization of its client products and experiences.
The first set of capabilities to move to Azure will be the bank’s trade finance systems, allowing seamless cross-border trade for the bank’s corporate and institutional clients.
As the company strives to address evolving customer needs and build the next generation of banking experience, Microsoft Worldwide Financial Services Corporate Vice President Bill Borden said that the company commits to helping the bank.
Standard Chartered will adopt a cloud-first principle for all new software developments and major enhancements and a multi-cloud approach where its core banking, trading systems, virtual banking, and banking as-a-service will be cloud-based by 2025.
“As [the] disruption in the financial industry continues, we can focus on client benefits by deploying our solutions quicker and allowing for faster integration of new business models and partners.” Standard Chartered Group Chief Information Officer Michael Gorriz said.
Standard Chartered recognizes that as technology reshapes the banking industry, a cloud-first strategy is critical to make the bank’s ambition of making banking simpler, faster, and more convenient.
The partnership will advance the bank’s digital workspace transformation with the help of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams in providing modern productivity and collaboration tools to the bank’s 84,000 employees across its 60 markets. Isabel S. Macaraeg