GCP – New white paper: Strengthening operational resilience in financial services by migrating to Google Cloud

Operational resilience continues to be a key focus for financial services firms. Regulators from around the world are refocusing supervisory approaches on operational resilience to support the soundness of financial firms and the stability of the financial ecosystem. Our new white paper discusses the continuing importance of operational resilience to the financial services sector, and the role that a well-executed migration to Google Cloud can play in strengthening it. Here are the key highlights: 

Operational resilience in financial services

Financial services firms and regulators are increasingly focused on operational resilience, reflecting the growing dependency that the financial services industry has on complex systems, automation and technology, and third parties. 

Operational resilience can be defined as the “ability to deliver operations, including critical operations and core business lines, through a disruption from any hazard”¹. Given this definition, operational resilience needs to be thought of as a desired outcome, instead of a singular activity, and as such, the approach to achieving that outcome needs to address a multitude of operational risks including: 

• Cybersecurity: Continuously adjusting key controls, people, processes and technology to prevent, detect and react to external threats and malicious insiders.

• Pandemics: Sustaining business operations in scenarios where people cannot, or will not, work in close proximity to colleagues and customers.

• Environmental and Infrastructure: Designing and locating facilities to mitigate the effects of localised weather and infrastructure events, and to be resilient to physical attacks.

• Geopolitical: Understanding and managing risks associated with geographic and political boundaries between intragroup and third-party dependencies.

• Third-party Risk: Managing supply chain risk, and in particular of critical outsourced functions by addressing vendor lock in, survivability and portability.

• Technology Risk: Designing and operating technology services to provide the required levels of availability, capacity, performance, quality and functionality. 

Operational resilience benefits from migrating to Google Cloud

There is a growing recognition among policymakers and industry leaders that, far from creating unnecessary new risk, a well-executed migration to public cloud technology over the coming years will provide capabilities to financial services firms that will enable them to strengthen operational resilience in ways that are not otherwise achievable.  

Foundationally, Google Cloud’s infrastructure and operating model is of a scale and robustness that can provide financial services customers a way to increase their resilience in a highly commercial way.

Equally important are the Google Cloud products, and our support for hybrid and multi-cloud, that help financial services customers manage various operational risks in a differentiated manner:

• Cybersecurity that is designed in, and from the ground up. From encryption by default, to our Titan security chip, to high-scale DOS defences, to the power of Google Cloud data analytics and Security Command Center our solutions help you secure your environment.

• Solutions that decouple employees and customers from physical offices and premises. This includes zero-trust based remote access that removes the need for complex VPNs, rapidly deployed customer contact center AI virtual agents, and Google Workspace for best-in-class workforce collaboration.

• Globally and regionally resilient infrastructure, data centers and support. We offer a global footprint of 24 regions and 73 zones allowing us to serve customers in over 200 countries, with a globally distributed support function so we can support customers even in adverse circumstances.

• Strategic autonomy through appropriate controls. Our recognition that customers and policymakers, particularly in Europe, strive for even greater security and autonomy is embodied in our work on data sovereignty, operational sovereignty, and software sovereignty.

• Portability, substitutability and survivability, using our open cloud. We understand that from a financial services firm’s perspective, achieving operational resilience may include solving for situations where their third parties are unable, for any reason, to provide the services contracted.

• Reducing technical debt, whilst focusing on great financial products and services. We provide a portfolio of solutions so that financial services firms’ technology organisations can focus on delivering high-quality services and experiences to customers, and not on operating foundational technologies such as servers, networks and mainframes.

We are committed to ensuring that Google Cloud solutions for financial services are designed in a manner that best positions the sector in all aspects of operational resilience. Furthermore, we recognize that this is not simply about making Google Cloud resilient: the sector needs autonomy, sovereignty and survivability. You can learn more about Google Cloud’s point of view on operational resilience in financial services by downloading the white paper.

^{1. “Sound Practices to Strengthen Operational Resilience”, FRB, OCC, FDIC}