A change in the mindsets is important to bring about digital transformation across the financial services industry. Many financial services organizations have thus far relied on centralized storage of critical data. For those that were heavily dependent on physical infrastructure, the fallout of the pandemic has hit hard.

For instance, banks are comfortable with storing data digitally, but not all of them are fully geared up for customers submitting data online. In many instances, while banks approve of online documentation for a transaction, they do not consider the process complete without the applicant physically visiting the bank and appending a signature.

When organizations needed to ensure continuity in work during the lockdowns, the only way out for them was to authorize remote access. Consequently, some employees had to physically bring home their office machines to facilitate remote work.

Digital work demands perpetual access to services, and that is possible only by enabling technology for cloud computing. Migration to the cloud will no longer be an option for financial services organizations. Instead, it will become an essential part of their functioning.

The challenges of remote operations can be experienced first-hand when the need arises to set up access to a remote machine for an urgent presentation. A painful digital experience awaits those who are forced to run heavy financial services applications on physical infrastructure in the bank premises, which is then transmitted to them over the internet.