Newly Released Cloud Adoption Guides Seek to Protect US Financial Services Sector

The multi-agency Financial and Banking Information Infrastructure Committee and the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council, comprising private entities, have jointly developed guidelines for banks and financial institutions’ safe adoption of cloud technologies, particularly for small companies. 

Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an FBIIC member, noted that the U.S. financial system is “deeply reliant on a handful of powerful Big Tech cloud service providers.” The resources for cloud adoption formulated in coordination with FSSCC will help protect the financial industry “by levelling the playing field between financial firms of all sizes and big cloud service providers,” he stressed.

The cloud approaches were delivered after FBIIC’s year-long work with private companies in the FSSCC, the Treasury Department said.

The effort, led by the Treasury’s Cloud Executive Steering Group and directed by the Financial Stability Oversight Council, seeks to fill the gaps cited in the department’s 2023 Financial Services Sector’s Adoption of Cloud Services, such as a lack of transparency, tools and human capital for secure cloud services. 

FSSC officials said during a press briefing in Washington, D.C., that a large part of the cloud guidance was formulated to help secure small financial institutions.

Todd Conklin, the Treasury’s chief artificial intelligence officer and deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection, observed that smaller financial firms are often unprepared and “forced” into full-scale cloud adoption by third-party vendors.