21 The financial services industry responded to the pandemic in the same way most industries did — they sped up their digital transformation projects. What made the acceleration particularly urgent for this sector is that customers have come to expect a highly digital banking experience. That required ramping up capabilities to meet customer experience, while also maintaining compliance with a wealth of banking and security regulations. It’s no wonder financial services is such a big target for cybercriminals. Just think about all the juicy data they hold — everything from bank account information to social security numbers. It’s a treasure trove of sensitive data — much of which, by regulation, must be stored securely for long periods of time. And it must be stored securely even in the face of increasing ransomware risk. In fact, a recent report found that in 2021, 55% of financial services firms suffered at least one ransomware attack, up from 34% the prior year. On top of that, this sector is also grappling with two other significant (and unfortunately common) challenges — a proliferation of outdated legacy infrastructure, coupled with the ongoing need for digital transformation. Object storage can help financial services IT teams navigate these choppy waters. The high cost and vulnerabilities of legacy IT Legacy IT lingers at many financial services firms, despite digital transformation efforts. These firms have tended to underinvest in IT infrastructure, and the result is an inability to take advantage of new technology and application management techniques. This scenario makes it essentially impossible for them to meet customer expectations — or cybersecurity best practices. Then there’s the issue of a shrinking pool of professionals who know how to run and maintain these aging systems. That makes running and maintaining them harder and more expensive. The industry is trying to deal with technology issues on a limited budget, while also trying to meet regulatory obligations. And it’s not easy. Why the financial services industry is embracing object storage Financial firms need a secure, affordable storage solution that can help them meet the challenges and requirements of today and tomorrow, while eliminating silos and enabling rapid innovation. Scalability is a critical factor in the decision-making process due to the need to store and protect exploding volumes of data long-term. Accessibility is also key. Data should be accessible to both legacy applications and new cloud-native applications. The ideal solution blends on-premises private cloud infrastructure’s performance, control and security advantages with the advantages of public cloud. To prevent data from being unavailable, corrupted, overwritten, accidentally changed, lost, erased or encrypted against your will (as in the case of a ransomware attack), the ideal solution provides multiple layers of protection. Trust your highly sensitive data to a 7x Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader Recognized as a 7-time Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader, Scality offers all of the above benefits, plus the data management and disaster recovery organizations need. Due to its impressive fusion of safety, speed and scale, Scality RING is trusted by multinational financial services firms like BPCE for cost-effective backup storage with enterprise-grade durability and technical superiority to alternatives. And Scality RING is one of just a few storage systems that’s been certified as SEC 17a-4 compliant. If you’d like to learn more about why object storage is an ideal solution for the challenges of the financial services industry, read my recent article for Financial IT.
