Cloud computing has as many definitions as it does views, models, vendors, market niches, and adoption rates. Yet, there is a general consensus that moving to a cloud-based environment enables economies of scale, operational flexibility, and a reduction in overhead expenses and physical storage that allows a firm to gain more agility and possible competitive advantages. Determining the type of model to be employed – public, private, or hybrid – depends on the underlying applications, information, and data that will be stored in the cloud. Accounting for the proprietary and sensitive nature of client data explains why many financial services and particularly, capital markets firms are reluctant to embrace the public cloud. Instead, early expenditure has been allocated toward developing private clouds, like those built by State Street, ING Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America, which reside behind a firm’s firewall, and are accessible only to its constituents. As increasing cost pressures, reduced profit margins, and uncertain economic conditions continue to affect bottom lines, firms will have to shore up their balance sheets and one area they will immediately target is IT budgets. Therefore, it makes too much sense for even capital markets firms, notorious laggards of technology adoption, to ignore the cost savings and benefits that accrue from gradually moving services and business applications onto the cloud.

To learn more, Capital Markets members can access, Adoption and Investment in Financial Services Technologies: Cloud Solutions to understand the industry’s planned adoption and replacement of cloud computing technology, age of current technology, average annual spend, and expected budget changes.

More about the Survey

Adoption and Investment in Financial Services Technologies is a series of reports that provide findings on the current state of technology, installation dates, and spend and budget change for 94 areas of technology across financial services, including 19 focused on capital markets. The reports are based on CEB TowerGroup’s survey of over 200,000 technology experts and executives between December 2011 and February 2012.

By leveraging the Adoption and Investment reports, capital markets executives can learn more about the current technology landscape and make better informed decisions by utilizing the three distinct components of the offering. These components include:

State of Technology: This section provides an overview of the current state of cloud computing implementation across the capital markets industry, highlighting planned adoption and replacement.

Installation Dates: Executives can review projected installation dates for those firms indicating they plan to adopt or replace their cloud computing technology, and also see the relative age of currently installed cloud platforms in the industry.

Spend and Budget Change: Not only can executives review the average annual spend of firms that have or plan to adopt/replace their cloud solution but they can also review the expected IT budget change for cloud computing systems among their peers in the capital markets industry.

To learn more, members can download Adoption and Investment in Financial Services Technologies: Cloud Solutions.