Cloud services ‘already dominant’ among mid-market firms

Large organisations, such as the high street banks, face a “long journey” away from legacy IT to cloud-based technology, but cloud services are already “dominant” among mid-market firms, according to Experian’s Stephanie Leroy.

Asked whether the shift to cloud software marked the end of legacy tech systems, Leroy, senior director global product management at Experian, said it depended on the size of the company and also the region in which it operates.

“I still think that for very large organisations the end of legacy IT is quite a long journey and if I think about organisations which are running business in critical regions, legacy IT still might be the right option to deal with regulation and compliance for exchanging data, for storing this data,” she said.

Speaking on an episode of Open Banking Expo TV in partnership with Experian, Leroy went on to explain that there are some “geographical exceptions” where storing that data outside of the country is often too regulated to be managed by a cloud vendor.

“I’m thinking about countries like Russia, Turkey, China – it’s hard for them to manage data exchange and store it. To have use of an external cloud vendor is a challenge.”

She added: “On the other side we have the mid-market, which is already more focused on cloud services. I think in this area cloud services are dominant already and legacy IT will be by exception.”

Hayley Viner, products lead, UK payments at ClearBank, joined Leroy on Open Banking Expo TV to discuss what is meant by the type of legacy tech typically associated with the large banks and the role that cloud software plays in the customer journey.

“From the moment code is released, it gets to a legacy stage,” said Viner. “It’s always going to need to be maintained to ensure that cloud-based solutions don’t end up becoming legacy IT as well.

“That being said, the beauty of cloud-based services does mean that once integrated within a company, it’s much quicker and easier to review and update code and deliver that benefit to an end user.”

Among the advice offered by Leroy to organisations looking to migrate to the cloud is to view it as an “opportunity”.

“I think moving to cloud technology can be an opportunity to consolidate your different businesses into a unified platform, or at the opposite, create a meaningful set of micro services and APIs for driving different parts of your business independently,” Leroy added.

To watch the full episode of Open Banking Expo TV in partnership with Experian, click here.