SEATTLE — Lenders migrating to the cloud must fully understand their technology in order to satisfy potential inquiries from regulators, Bryce Elliott, Truist’s Chief Information Officer for Wholesale and Enterprise Payments, said today during the Bank Automation Summit Fall event in Seattle.

“Regulatory bodies, whether internal or external, are always going to want to know: Do you know exactly what is happening in a cloud environment?” Elliott said. “Can you monitor, control, track, report, identify, detect … either the transaction or capability, end to end?  

“How do you know that [Amazon Web Services] is secure with that transaction? What are the controls?” Elliott said, noting that lenders will have to prove security to regulators.   

Embedded cloud monitoring tools are worth pursuing — “don’t underestimate them,” Truist’s Elliott says. #BASFall22

— JJ Hornblass (@hornblass) September 19, 2022

Lenders cannot just say, ‘I promise’ but must instead understand the importance of “showing and tracking that evidence,” he said.  

Regulators are “still learning” when it comes to the cloud, Elliott said, noting that they ask Truist “for advice and we’re happy to partner with them.”  

Additionally, lenders must keep an eye on forthcoming regulations, he said.  

“You look at customer privacy regulations that are coming out — you’ve got to apply them to this flow, as well. It’s a journey,” Elliott said.

Bank Automation Summit Fall 2022 is taking place Sept. 18-20 in Seattle. View the agenda here.