Eight in 10 financial institutions will migrate at least half their core systems to the cloud starting in 2024 in search of efficient operations, robust tech stacks and quick access to data. 

According to technology provider Galileo’s “pivotal trend” predictions for 2024, 82% of financial institutions plan to modernize their systems with core migrations to the cloud in the next five years.

The $61 billion Valley Bank, for one, is in the process of moving its applications to the cloud, Chief Data and Analytics Officer Sanjay Sidhwani told Bank Automation News. 

“We are still building out the cloud story for overall technology stack,” Sidhwani said. “Our data infrastructure is already primarily on the cloud, and we are working on moving our applications to the cloud as well.” 

While the Morristown, N.J.-based bank moved its data infrastructure to the cloud last year with provider Snowflake, Valley also works with Microsoft Azure for its data services, Sidhwani said. 

Similarly, $162 billion Navy Federal Credit Union is working on its cloud migration to offer faster services to its customers, Chief Technology Officer Sovan Shatpathy told BAN. 

The initiative to become cloud native will allow Vienna, Va.-based Navy Fed to provide faster payments to its customers and scale its operations more quickly, Shatpathy said, comparing migration to the cloud to “going from internal combustion engine cars to electric cars.” 

Why migrate?

Ninety-one percent of financial services executives say moving to the cloud enables significant growth, according to a November report by technology consulting firm Capgemini. 

Cloud migration also comes with additional benefits for institutions like machine learning models, cyber security for data and gen AI solutions, William Borden, corporate vice president of worldwide financial services at Microsoft, previously told BAN. 

Valley Bank and Navy Fed join leading FIs in cloud migration, including $224 billion Citizens Bank, $1.7 trillion Wells Fargo, and $1.9 trillion Santander Bank. 

The banks are implementing the following cloud strategies: 

• Citizens Bank aims to move all its operations to the cloud by 2025 with Amazon Web Services hosting 90% of its data and applications and the remaining hosted by Equinix. 
• Santander Bank recently moved its corporate investment banking business to Google Cloud, allowing it to “simultaneously run workloads on its existing core banking mainframe and in the cloud, allowing it to perform real-time testing with no disruption to its businesses,” a spokesperson told BAN.  

Santander aims to move most of its operations to “the cloud by the end of 2024, finishing up by 2025,” the spokesperson said. 

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