The latest report from the International Data Corp. (IDC) lays out the steps or strategies financial services firms in the Asia Pacific (APAC) should look into when managing cloud services.

The “IDC Financial Insights Asia/Pacific’s latest report “Cloud Outlook 2021: Cloud is Increasingly Becoming a Primary Route for Financial Services Collaboration, Innovation, and Transformation” underscores six market trends that continue to define cloud demand and the future of cloud in financial services in 2021 and beyond.

Cloud has become an essential component in the accelerated digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many companies hastily transformed or migrated to cloud due to the COVID-19 pandemic, IDC believes the subsequent steps in their digital transformation should patch the gaps created by the accelerated move of business operations to cloud services.

IDC IT industry predictions for 2021 and beyond

IDC expects IaaS and PaaS private, SaaS to increase further in 2020

CAPEX, OPEX

“Cloud will continue to be a significant foundational pillar for financial services institutions for the foreseeable future. As enterprises invest in cloud, IDC has observed that the ability to shift cloud spending from CAPEX (capital expenditure) to OPEX (operational expenditure) has proven to be a successful enabler for future cloud investments, scalability, and availability,” said Sneha Kapoor, research manager at IDC Financial Insights Asia Pacific.

According to IDC’s Worldwide Public Cloud Services Spending Guide, January 2021, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) public cloud spend of financial services institutions (FSIs) will grow over three times from $4.9 billion in 2019 to $18.1 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.9%. As cloud investment models continue to evolve, the way FSIs manage their cloud services must evolve as well. The next 24 months will usher in a continued shift from monolithic models to more simplified cloud services.

Banks

IDC Financial Insights expects that by 2023, 85% of tier-1 and tier-2 APEJ banks will curate an infrastructure strategy by coalescing on-premises or dedicated private clouds and multiple public clouds, along with legacy platforms, to assuage their many infrastructure requirements.

“Hybrid cloud environments and the use of multi-clouds means a more agnostic experience for delivering container-based workloads. Expanding microservices will offer increased tangible benefits and leverage developer independence, scalability, and rapid deployment capabilities,” said Clay Miller, Senior Executive Advisor at IDC Financial Insights Asia Pacific.