Many financial institutions are not satisfied with the investments made in their cloud infrastructure and are reconsidering those investments moving forward, experts say. 

Fewer than 40% of financial services companies said they were highly satisfied with cloud migration outcomes, according to Capgemini’s Nov. 14 Cloud in Financial Services report, for which the think tank surveyed 600 financial services leaders, including heads of cloud and chief experience officers across 13 markets like the U.S., U.K., Australia and Germany in 2024.

“The cloud journey was sold to all financial services that it will solve all your problems, your life will be faster, easier and cheaper,” Elias Ghanem, global head of Capgemini Research Institute for Financial Services, told Bank Automation News.  

Unrealistic expectations and not fully adopting cloud infrastructure are leading to dissatisfaction among cloud migrators. Some financial institutions didn’t gain the efficiencies they anticipated or are unhappy with the technical lift required to adopt cloud infrastructure, Ghanem said. 

Legacy systems 

Some financial institutions migrating to the cloud are still holding onto their older tech stacks, which creates hurdles to optimization, Ghanem said. 

“If you take your old furniture and you put it in your new house, the new house will not be better,” Ghanem said. “You need a … cloud-native mentality in [order to] reinvent yourself before you start on your journey.” 

The reason to migrate to the cloud is equally important as the migration itself, Ghanem said. In fact, 84% of the leaders surveyed for the Capgemini report said they migrate to the cloud for operational efficiency. 

According to the report: 

• 33% said the cloud helped increase operational efficiency; 

• 27% said it brought scalability; 

• 24% said the cloud helped in data analytics; and 

• 21% said the cloud helped improve security and compliance. 

However, not all FIs are dissatisfied with their cloud migration.

Citizens Bank, for one, is planning to go all in, with the aim to move 70% of its applications to the cloud by the end of 2024 and to move all operations to the cloud by the end of 2025, according to prior reporting by BAN. 

Register here for early-bird pricing for Bank Automation Summit 2025, taking place March 3-4 in Nashville, Tenn. View the full event agenda here.