The Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), a hub for open innovation in financial services, and Citi, a leading global bank, have partnered to launch a project focusing on open standards for cloud control in the financial services sector.
The open standard project, proposed by Citi and supported by more than 10 global financial firms, aims to mitigate compliance and cloud concentration risks. This move follows the rising trend of cloud adoption amidst an increasingly fragmented global regulatory landscape.
FINOS operates under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation and promotes open innovation in financial services. The organisation aims to foster common standards and open-source software to handle the rapid technological transformations within the sector.
On the other hand, Citi, a financial powerhouse with operations worldwide, offers a wide range of financial services and products including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.
This open standard project aims to develop a unified set of cybersecurity, resilience, and compliance controls across major cloud service providers (CSPs). Additionally, by constructing a uniform taxonomy of common services and associated threats, the project intends to mitigate the systemic risk of cloud concentration.
Several prominent firms, such as Bank of Montreal (BMO), Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Natwest Group, Google Cloud, and vendors like GitHub, Red Hat, Symphony, Adaptive, Container Solutions, ControlPlane, GitLab, and Scott Logic have already shown interest in the project. The initiative is set to enter the formation stage in August and will be available under the Community Specification License later this year.
The project seeks participation from global financial institutions, CSPs, fintech and technology vendors, industry associations, and regulators to ensure broad representation of all constituents involved in the shared responsibility model.
Citi’s Chief Technology Officer and Head of Technology Infrastructure, Jim Adams, voiced, “There is a need for a Cloud Standard that will improve certain security and control measures across the Financial Services industry, whilst simplifying and democratising access for all institutions to operate and benefit by leveraging the public cloud. It is important to collaborate with our peers to ensure consistency across cloud service providers, ensuring the industry can realise true multi-cloud strategies.”
FINOS Executive Director and Linux Foundation Europe’s General Manager, Gabriele Columbro, emphasised, “The only way forward is open collaboration across constituents, hence why I’m truly excited to see so many FINOS Members quickly rallying around this project, which has the potential to become one of the most valuable and transformational initiatives in our open source community, and across the industry.”
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