Deutsche Börse harnesses Microsoft cloud

Deutsche Börse, Germany’s stock exchange, is adopting Microsoft cloud services that will enable it  to cut costs and introduce new technology quickly.

The deal, which will see Deutsche Börse use services including Microsoft Azure and Office 365, involved setting new standards in the EU for contracts between highly regulated financial services firms and cloud service providers.

Organisations in highly regulated sectors, including trading, are cautious about moving certain workloads to the cloud for fear of falling foul of the regulators. The contract signed by Deutsche Börse and Microsoft is said to address national and EU regulations, providing a model for other organisations in the financial sector.

“Cloud is a main driver for innovation and has the potential to reshape the financial services industry,” said Christoph Böhm, Deutsche Börse board member. “As a key technology, cloud lays the foundation for enabling major initiatives that support Deutsche Börse’s Roadmap 2020. Together with Microsoft, we are very much looking forward to accelerating cloud adoption, for us as a company and for our clients.”

Deutsche Börse will accelerate its cloud migration this year. It said Microsoft’s public cloud would enable it to implement new functionality more quickly, and improve efficiency by further automating the provisioning of infrastructure and services.

“With this instant provisioning, Deutsche Börse will be able to react dynamically to changing business and customer demands and benefit from hundreds of services readily available,” it said. “In addition, new regulatory requirements can be addressed in a more agile way, to the benefit of customers and markets.”

Deutsche Borse expects the public cloud to support the development of technologies such as blockchain, big data analytics, automation and artificial intelligence. “These are part of Deutsche Börse’s group-wide strategic focus on new technologies,” it said.

Sabine Bendiek, managing director of Microsoft in Germany, said the Deutsche Börse deal is an important signal for cloud adoption in the entire financial industry and other industries with regulated workloads. “With our joint approach, Deutsche Börse and Microsoft will enable all companies in the European financial market to make full use of cloud services,” she said.