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Standard Chartered Partners With Microsoft to Become a “Cloud-First Bank”

Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft announced a three-year strategic partnership to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation through a cloud-first strategy.

They said this partnership marks a significant milestone for Standard Chartered in making its vision for virtual banking, next-generation payments, open banking and banking-as-a-service a reality by leveraging Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud platform.

The first set of capabilities to move to Microsoft Azure will be Standard Chartered’s trade finance systems, allowing for seamless cross-border trade for the bank’s corporate and institutional clients.

Standard Chartered said will also use Azure’s artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities to enhance and automate banking processes as well as deliver hyper personalisation of its client products and experiences. Co-innovation in open banking application programming interface (API) and Internet-of-Things-based, real-time payments will also help the bank unlock new banking experiences for clients.

Standard Chartered will adopt a multicloud approach, where significant applications, including its core banking and trading systems and new digital ventures such as virtual banking and banking as-a-service, will be cloud-based by 2025, subject to regulatory approvals.

The bank will also adopt a cloud-first principle for all new software developments and major enhancements.

Bhupendra Warathe

Bhupendra Warathe, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Transformation at Standard Chartered added that,

“The speed and scale of continuous innovation offered by Azure allows us to innovate with the latest AI services to meet evolving client needs. We can pilot new apps in one market and scale them rapidly across others. This is especially important for a bank with a footprint as broad and diverse as ours.”

Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft said,

Bill Borden

“Cloud computing is an enabler for financial institutions to modernise their infrastructure and systems, to gain the agility they need to respond to competitive pressures, regulatory environments and customer demand. We are committed to helping Standard Chartered Bank in its ongoing digital transformation journey as it strives to address evolving customer needs and build the next generation of banking experiences.”

The partnership will also advance the bank’s digital workplace transformation with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams providing modern productivity and collaboration tools to Standard Chartered’s 84,000 employees across its 60 markets.

Featured image credit: Standard Chartered