Cloud computing powers the world’s financial exchanges

Many of the world’s largest financial exchanges are transforming the way they run global capital markets through the adoption of cloud computing technologies.

In November, CME Group entered a 10-year partnership with Google that will it move its IT infrastructure and markets to the cloud. CME Group says this will enable it to launch new products and services much more quickly.

Then, a month later, Nasdaq and Amazon Web Services announced a similar collaboration. Through a several-year partnership, AWS will work with Nasdaq to transfer the latter’s North America-based markets to a cloud computing environment.

Traditional institutions such as financial exchanges are drawn to cloud infrastructure because they want to “increase market access” and “streamline operations”, according to Adrian Poole, head of financial services at Google Cloud UK.

He explains that they can achieve these goals due to the flexible and scalable nature of cloud technology, which enables organisations to scale capacity up or down, at any time.

But Poole adds that cloud adoption isn’t just a case of improving infrastructure. He points out that multinational companies, like CME Group, are using the greater processing power of cloud computing to “meet customer expectations in new ways” and “drive transformation”.

“The vast amount of computing power that the cloud offers means that data analysis can happen at lightning speed,” he…

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