Fifth Third Bank will migrate its mobile app to the cloud before the end of the year.
The $211 billion Cincinnati-based bank initiated its overall cloud migration in 2018 and began a transition to FIS Modern Banking Platform — a cloud-native core banking solution — in July 2021.
Fifth Third also offers real-time, cloud-based payments and was an early adopter of The Clearing House’s cloud-based payment rails, Jude Schramm, chief information officer, told Bank Automation News.
“Internally we are also building out our big-data platform for advanced analytics and model development, with early use cases already taking advantage of native cloud capabilities,” Schramm said.
Setting a cloud strategy
When migrating on-premise data centers to the cloud, financial institutions (FIs) need to consider their end goals, Schramm said, adding, “It is important to decide on a strategy before moving to the cloud.”
Banks and FIs have three choices for cloud migration, he said:
- “Lift and shift” legacy apps to the cloud without a redesign;
- Use a third-party API wrapper to “try and get a more portable path to multiple providers”; or
- Become cloud-native and “refactor and/or rebuild all apps using native services developed and maintained by a cloud provider,” Schramm said. This route takes full advantage of cloud capabilities.
Selecting cloud services providers
When it’s time to select cloud-based services and providers, banks and FIs should consider the availability of talent now and in the future, according to Schramm.
“Experienced [development, security and operations] engineers are in high demand and it’s a very competitive space,” he told BAN. “Ensuring we can scale the practice through both internal re-skilling and external sources of talent is a key part of our decision criteria.”
Banks and FIs should also choose providers that embed controls to securely configure cloud environments, Schramm noted.
“Ensuring a provider has the necessary native capabilities to secure and protect data, scale for resiliency and fulfill on our use cases over time is extremely important,” he said.
Bank Automation Summit Fall 2022, taking place Sept. 19-20 in Seattle, is a crucial event on automation and automation technology in banking. Learn more and register for Bank Automation Summit Fall 2022.
