New Indian Banks need to ride the cloud for their Success

Come January we will have 7 new Indian Banks given licences to operate from the many applicants.
The new licences will be given with conditions attached for rural thrust in banking and also social banking.
As the applicants eagerly await their licences and start head hunting for their leadership the promoters will need to review whether Cloud Computing could be  the Elixir for getting them operational in weeks rather then months.
Cloud computing will give them reach to the remote rural hamlets in India and also be effective, reliable and a secure vehicle to reach banking technology to the 40 million unbaked Indians.
As the head hunters set the wheels in motion to hire the new suite of leaders to put execution plans into action it may the time for the Board of these promoter Banks to consider Cloud Computing for their profitability, agility and secure banking.

Are New Indian Banks Ready to Fly into the Cloud ?
Photo by Amitav Thamba

Hiring Technology leaders from the conventional technology banking landscape may be disastrous for these banks who will need to hit the ground running.
The good news is a few of these new banks could be Micro Finance institutions who are already using the cloud and they will surge ahead of the other Banks who use conventional wisdom in rolling out banking solutions the old way.
Indian Banks need to learn from cloud deployment for banking in Latin America and Africa and learn from their experiences in providing reliable and affordable financial services to their customers.
Are the new Indian Banks prepared to ride the cloud for their success ?

New Banks in India need Cloud Computing

The Indian regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently agreed to provide licences to a number of new Banks in India with a caveat of serving the under banked population.
The promoters of these Banks will be scurrying with their consultants to hire CIO/CTO from other Banks to get off their Core Banking Systems off the ground before they can launch their banks.
It will be good for them to pause for a moment and consider Cloud Computing as a vehicle for their technology launch and here are some of the benefits

Cloud Computing will be the dawn of a new technology paradigm for Indian Banks. 

1. Time to Market will be in weeks rather then months so they can start their operations ASAP, especially if they adopt a SAAS based Banking solution. (e.g. the cloud based core banking solution offered by NABARD through Wipro and TCS).
2. They will operate in an Opex model, which means capital will not be locked into traditional technology capex investments. 
3. Agility  in their business will make launch of new and innovative products a breeze.
4. The under banked population can be easily reached from any device that can connect to the banks cloud Infrastructure. 
5. The significant savings in technology operation costs will be of immense benefit to the bank. 
6. They can focus on Banking rather then tackling information technology constraints and challenges. 
7. The regulator will support this initiative because this is not the first cloud computing banking solution in India. 

In a few months time we can spot the technology winners in these new banks and I am sure that the banks that adopt cloud computing will be at the top of the list.