Top 4 Trends in Financial Services
Financial Services Continue to Blaze the Digital Trail
Consumer demand for seamless digital interactions, driven by fierce competition from FinTechs and big tech, have pushed banks, insurance companies, and other financial services to lead digital transformation. This rapid expansion continues in 2022, as shown by the results of the F5 annual State of Application Strategy survey.
App modernization has accelerated.
Modernization, which was already rapid, has become nearly universal as financial services work to continually enhance the customer experience, strengthen security, and speed the release of new features. Most organizations use multiple methods for modernization, including adding APIs and microservices, and adopting site reliability engineering (SRE) practices.
App Modernization Methods
Multi-cloud strategies have become the norm.
Nearly three-quarters of financial services respondents have multi-cloud strategies, and they rely on as-a-service providers at rates higher than the average across industries; Security-as-a-Service is especially popular.
Yet at the same time— and contrary to previous expectations—three quarters of financial services have or soon will repatriate applications from a public cloud back to an on-premises or co-location data center.
App Repatriation
Security remains tough to manage.
Consistent security remains the top multi-cloud challenge, but visibility has risen to tie it for the top spot.
Furthermore, finding the right balance between security and performance factors (which may include minimizing customer friction) continues to be tricky. Nearly three quarters of financial services respondents said they would consider turning off security controls for a percentage improvement in performance.
Willingness to Turn Off Security for Performance Boost
There’s a hurdle on the popular path toward AI.
The industry’s digital innovation includes ambitious plans to support the business through artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning (ML). But, as in other industries, nearly everyone in the financial services world is missing insights they’ll need to operationalize their AI/ML plans.
Use of AI/ML
For more insights into the industry’s future, get the F5 2022 State of Application Strategy Report: Financial Services Edition.