A Financial Community Cloud (金融社区云, Jīnróng Shèqū Yún) is a walled-off, highly secure hosting service, specifically designed to meet regulators' needs for monitoring, investigating and auditing the activities of financial services companies. Back in 2016, the China Banking Regulatory Commission's 13th Five Year Plan alluded to the requirement for such specialised cloud services, and China's cloud hosting market has subsequently been moving to meet anticipated demand. Several established cloud providers are introducing Financial Community Cloud offerings, including Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Baidu Cloud, Huawei Cloud and 21Vianet (partner to Western cloud service providers such as Microsoft). Traditional IT hardware and services vendors, such as IBM, HP and Sinosoft, also appear to be dipping their toes into the specialised hosting waters.
All of this activity might be interpreted as good for innovation. However, it remains to be seen whether Financial Community Cloud hosting services will foment innovation in financial technology or stifle it. At the moment, there is no indication that such specialised services are part of a larger plan to open up China's financial "technology stack" to permit more experimentation and innovation. Instead, the government's focus on security and control seems to pose an impediment to the evolution of financial technologies.
Surprisingly, the CBRC mandate for centralised hosting appears to have struck financial services companies as representing a potentially lucrative business opportunity, and they are joining the already crowded field. Several financial services companies that have reportedly received recognition from the Chinese government as certified Financial Community Cloud providers include Industrial Bank Co. Ltd. (with their offshoot named Industrial Consumer Finance Co. Ltd.), China Merchants Bank (with their MBCloud offering) and PingAn Insurance (with their OneConnect suite of cloud-native products).
So, is the requirement for Financial Community Cloud part of a larger plan for innovation? That scenario seems unlikely, because partnerships are emerging that match traditional public cloud providers, who have expertise in technology infrastructure, with traditional financial services companies, who can offer specialised knowledge and processes to satisfy the security and audit concerns of Chinese regulators. The focus of these partnerships on traditional security and controls does not bode well for disruptive and innovative change. Nevertheless, small steps still count as progress. One example partnership is a cooperative effort involving the Bank of Nanjing, Alibaba Cloud and Ant Financial, which recently launched the Xinyun+ financial cloud platform, intended to help small and medium-sized banks in China manage their lending businesses. You can find a case study on Xinyun+ in KapronAsia's latest report, entitled "The Future of Fintech Cooperation."
China's requirements for Financial Community Cloud could very well be part of a centralised government plan for establishing a Chinese "technology stack" that encourages fintech innovation. However, the large number of players who are vying for a slice of the specialised hosting pie suggests that a master plan is not lurking just beneath the surface. As 2020 progresses, more details should be provided. In the meantime, China's financial services community must await clarification before important infrastructure plans can be made, accordingly.
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About the Author: Alan Hammes is a Technology Governance Specialist with experience helping large, multinational organisations adopt emerging technologies in a safe, controlled and ethical manner. Alan has led global and Asia-specific initiatives governing the use of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Public Cloud. He is equally dedicated to helping companies navigate the evolving regulatory landscape for other emerging technologies, including Distributed Ledger Technology/Blockchain (DLT), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Management/Data Privacy, 5G, FinTech and RegTech.