Top 5 Financial Technology Challenges Addressed by the Cloud

Building financial technology software has become an increasingly complex endeavor with the proliferation of operating systems and the intense demand for financial mobile apps. Financial technology firms are also being driven by rapid changes in the consumer software industry which has resulted in pressure for dramatically shorter development cycles.Now more than ever financial technology software firms need to focus on what they do best and seek to leave non-core activities to others. An obvious candidate for this strategy is the area of market data management.The infrastructure required to power today’s financial applications can be daunting. Fortunately, the market data cloud offers a dramatically easier approach for both financial technology firms and their end-users.

This post is the first in a multi-part series that describes the top 5 financial technology challenges all addressed by the market data cloud. In subsequent posts we will examine each of these financial technology challenges in greater detail.
Financial Technology Challenge #1
Focusing on building financial services applications, not data management infrastructure
With intense pressure to release software as soon as possible financial technology firms need to focus their finite resources on what they do best, and leave resource-intensive tasks such as data management to others. With an on-demand market data cloud all the headaches involved with building and maintaining a market data infrastructure are instantly removed.
Financial Technology Challenge #2
Deploying your financial mobile apps in record time
Traditionally a major roadblock to launching mobile apps quickly was the challenge associated with integrating proprietary flat files and the data feeds necessary to power financial technology mobile applications with market data. Today practically all financial mobile applications can be quickly powered via open and standardized cloud APIs. This approach can shorten deployment times from weeks to hours.
Financial Technology Challenge #3
Accessing one market data cloud for all your current and future needs
As the usage of your application gains momentum it may make sense to offer different types of data – maybe a different asset class or perhaps market data from a different region. With an on-demand market data cloud and its standardized data formats adding new data sets as your requirements change can be accomplished within hours. There is no need to deal with multiple vendors or data formats.
Financial Technology Challenge #4
Reducing cost with pay-as-you-go pricing
Market data can become very expensive very quickly, especially when vendor pricing models force you to pay for data you don’t actually use. Financial technology firms and their end-users can significantly reduce cost by taking advantage of the on-demand pricing structure of the market data cloud. Now just pay for what you use and leave the rest of the data on the cloud.
Financial Technology Challenge #5
Responding to regulation with flexible reporting
Financial technology firms operate in a highly regulated industry. Recent events have increased demands for transparency from regulators and investors alike. Financial technology firms must respond to this new regulatory environment by focusing on the reporting capabilities of their applications. A key component of flexible reporting is the ability to instantly enrich reporting with multi-asset class data from an on-demand market data cloud.