How LatAm cloud regions help the financial industry

Setting up cloud regions in Latin America has boosted demand for solutions for the financial industry, an Oracle executive told BNamericas.

"The fact that we are expanding throughout the world has had a huge impact on all industries, but particularly financial services, because it allows customers to run our cloud applications locally," financial services director Agustín Schachmann said.

The financial industry must comply with data security standards, which is why local datacenters are preferred.

"[Having local datacenters] greatly facilitates everything that has to do with the approvals entities have to obtain when developing this type of project," he added. “We are seeing that [the opening of local cloud regions] has had a super high impact on the banking and insurance industry.”

Oracle has over 40 datacenters worldwide, with several units operating in Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Recently, to company announced an agreement with Claro in Colombia to open a cloud region.

Oracle plans to further expand its cloud regions.

FINANCIAL INDUSTRY TRANSFORMATION 

Post-pandemic market transformation renewed interest by financial industry players in more efficient planning to better adapt to changes.

"Financial services entities have a great focus on how to make their evaluation process more efficient, how they work on risk models that allow better profitability schemes and financial planning that allow them to quickly adapt to changes," said Schachmann.

In times where disruption is normal, companies use technological tools to improve supply chain and financial planning processes. “Everything that’s related to planning is a challenge. We believe technology can help a lot in making it financially more efficient, but also improve the supply chain, storage, logistics, at any point in the company’s core processes,” he added.

Schachmann said technologies such as machine learning or artificial intelligence are helping too.

LATIN AMERICA

Schachmann said financial entities in Latin America are focusing either on solutions for attracting clients or on the back office to improve operations and become more profitable.

Companies that have concluded digital transformation now aim to work on financial planning processes, risk models and profitability analysis. "These are processes that have a strong impact on the finance areas and have a very high impact on the results of a finance company," he added.

He also said that Oracle is working with a bank in Peru on its risk and return model using machine learning technologies to predict client behavior and identify areas that could yield higher returns.

In addition, Oracle works with Colombia’s Banco Agrario to improve back office tasks, such as accounting. Banco Agrario used Oracle’s fusion cloud ERP solution to unify the operation of its 789 offices and 8,000 employees.

Other clients include insurer Prudential and financial entity Interbanking in Argentina and Mexico's GNP Seguros.