Cloud services could potentially provide economies of scale, enhance operational efficiencies and deliver cost savings. MAS consider cloud services operated by service providers as a form of outsourcing, and has no objections to financial institutions adopting cloud services.
Use Cases of Cloud
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Cloud services can be used to manage interactions with current and future customers, as well as organise, automate and synchronise sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.
Data Analytics
Cloud services can be used to analyse or transform data, which frequently requires ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) to facilitate the analysis.
Development Operations (DevOps)
Cloud services can be used for the purposes of rapid software development and testing.
Content Delivery Networks (CDN)
Cloud services can be used to cache data and deliver content over a highly distributed and available network of servers.
MAS Initiatives
Guidelines on Outsourcing
The MAS Guidelines on Outsourcing provide guidance on sound practices on risk management of outsourcing arrangements, including cloud.
Cloud Services Implementation Guide
MAS and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) has co-created the implementation guide for financial institutions to use when entering into cloud outsourcing arrangements.
Technology Risk Management Guidelines
The MAS Technology Risk Management Guidelines set out risk management principles and best practice standards to guide financial institutions in establishing robust risk management framework as well as operating processes to manage these risks.
Cloud 101
Deployment Models
Cloud services can be deployed in 5 ways (Community, Public, Private, Hosted Private and Hybrid) determined by its location as well as whether access and control is dedicated or shared.
Service Models
There are 3 service models (Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, and Software-as-a-Service) with increasing sharing of responsibilities with the cloud service providers and decreasing amount of control that a customer retains.
Key Characteristics
Cloud services are typically multi-tenant, with data commingling and higher propensity for processing to be carried out in multiple locations.
Benefits of Cloud
Agility
Cloud services allow IT resources to be made available quickly.
Scalability
Cloud services allow you to quickly scale up or pare down the IT resources required to support your business needs.
Pay-Per-Use
As you scale up or pare down the IT resources required, you only pay for the IT resources that you have consumed in the cloud.
Resiliency
Cloud services are typically deployed in data centres across the region, adding on to its resiliency.