IBM and Atos partner to help financial businesses migrate to the cloud

IBM has partnered with Atos, the closest thing it has to an equal in Europe, to help boost the digital transformation and cloud migration initiatives for banks and insurance companies in a project called Atos Cloud Centre of Excellence.

Finance is one of the most regulated industries and, therefore, one of the most reluctant to move to the cloud. The center’s goal is to increase security and regulatory compliance for financial services companies around the world that wish to move their workloads to the cloud.

Atos and IBM said the center will provide technology and financial services expertise for clients, backed by dedicated Atos professionals who are trained on IBM Cloud for Financial Services, IBM Cloud Paks and Red Hat OpenShift.

Atos is taking the leading by offering migration and modernization of customers’ mission-critical workloads to the IBM Cloud for Financial Services using the platform’s built-in security and compliance protocols, which are designed to help clients address compliance risk and deal with regulatory barriers to their digital transformation efforts.

The IBM Cloud for Financial Services features security capabilities including confidential computing technology and ‘Keep Your Own Key’ encryption designed to help financial institutions retain control of their data. At the core of the service is IBM Cloud Framework for Financial Services, which provides a set of preconfigured security and compliance controls, built specifically for and with the financial services industry.

Also part of the center is Atos OneCloud, a set of 10 offerings to help clients accelerate migration to the cloud. Launched last November, OneCloud features consulting services, multi-cloud orchestration across private and public clouds, application development, cloud artificial intelligence and machine learning and edge solutions.

“The new Atos Cloud Centre of Excellence will combine IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI solutions with Atos’ industry experts trained and certified for those solutions, as well as automation capabilities to accelerate innovation throughout the industry without sacrificing security,” said Howard Boville, head of the IBM Cloud platform, in a statement.

This isn’t the first time the two giants have teamed. In January they announced a collaboration effort on AI to optimize manufacturing and logistics companies’ operations, and in July the two joined forces to build a secure digital infrastructure for the Dutch Ministry of Defense.