support@stormitfinancial.com 
FinTech Trends Newsletter Week 31st July – 4th August 2017
What are the advantages of IT & Technology Managed Services ?
team offer solutions that can easily manage the growth and contraction of the user, server, market or site base and help you deal with the technology & data manage-
ment of regulatory & compliance burdens now required by the FCA, MiFID II & GDPR.
IT infrastructure is frequently seen as expensive, time consuming and very much a case of ‘running around keeping the lights on’ whilst providing limited business advantage. It’s therefore no surprise that more and more alternative investment, hedge fund, private equity and financial firms are outsourcing IT support. After all, most businesses don’t specialise in running their IT in-house at an infrastruc- ture level. Rather, they can look to consume it as a commodity service just as they would do with a utility or mobile phone contract, as I always say, IT as a utility.
Here, we answer the most common questions from firms looking to move to IT Managed Services.
Firstly, what are the benefits? – IT Managed Services allows organisations to focus on what they do best – their core business of investing, trading and managing investments – while benefiting from an IT managed service tailored to their business needs, delivering an IT infrastructure that meets their daily & unique demands and helps them prepare for things like digital transformation, regulatory and compliance complying.
Latest trend reports shows, that while 93 per cent of companies feel a connected digital infrastructure is important in serving investors & customers’ needs, an
As a Managed Service Provider (MSP), Storm IT Financials’
team offer solutions that can easily manage the growth and contraction of the user, server, market or site base and help you deal with the technology & data manage-
ment of regulatory & compliance burdens now required by the FCA, MiFID II & GDPR.
alarming 55 per cent believe their existing IT infrastructure limits their ability to do so. Something Storm IT Financial can help financial firms with.
What IT Managed Services do, are keep the burden of running IT in-house to a minimum, freeing up IT personnel to concentrate on more customer & user focused projects and reignite their business.
Can IT Managed Service Providers (MSP’s) help businesses move to the cloud? – IT MSP’s can help firms’ move to the cloud too, which is now a key enabler to gaining a competitive edge and complying with data regulations from the FCA, MiFID II & GDPR requirements. In the past, executives focused on whether or not their businesses should adopt the cloud. Today, they give a resounding ‘yes’ and in- stead, focus on finding the right cloud-based solutions at the right time, that best meet their needs and objectives.
The issue we see today is that firms often find that some of the applications they designed five to even ten years ago are not really suit- able for the cloud, even if the objectives stay the same. It’s these challenges that can lead to firms working with IT Managed Service providers (MSP’s), like Storm IT Financial who can help develop a plan for change and execute on the technical front to make sure the firm’s objectives are achieved soundly.
On the other hand, we often see cloud computing implemented as a result of alternative investment, hedge fund, private equity and financial firms making a significant business, compliant and regulatory change, growing its number of users or needing to turn an appli- cation on or off quickly – and we believe it’s the combination of IT Managed Services and the cloud that can enable such businesses to more effectively flex to their demands.
Simply put, the cloud is enhancing the Managed Service space. As well as the well-known benefits of using the cloud, like reducing the barriers to entry and increasing economies of scale, it is faster to deploy too, because there isn’t the big task of having to build a serv- er. In theory, it is often already built and firms’ just have to migrate or switch it on, which can all be managed by your MSP, like Storm IT Financial.
Storm IT Financial can help guide and advise firms on IT, technology, communication & cloud best practices so you can avoid unneces- sary & costly downtime and deal with the regulatory & compliance burdens now required by the FCA, MiFID II & GDPR. If you’d like more details on set up, migration, communications, disaster recovery, back up, cybersecurity, employee education & training seminars, data management, regulatory & compliance technology and managed solutions for your alternative investment, hedge fund, wealth.
Storm IT Financial FinTech News & Trends picks: Week 31st July – 4th August 2017
Microsoft Azure leads the industry in ISO certifications
Microsoft Azure completes new set of independent third-party ISO & Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) audits to expand certification portfolio:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/microsoft-azure-leads-the-industry-in-iso-certifications/
BNG Bank turns to BearingPoint for RegTech
BearingPoint announced that BNG Bank will use it’s Regulatory-as-a-Service (RaaS) solution for transaction-based reporting obligations:
https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/70294/bng-bank-turns-to-bearingpoint-for-regtech
Dinosaur Merchant Bank selects InvestCloud for wealth management
InvestCloud Inc appointed by Dinosaur Merchant Bank to provide digital platform for the Bank’s Euro & LATAM wealth management……..:
Europe’s Cyber Victims Are Racking Up Hundreds of Millions in Costs
Global hackers have unleashed many attacks in recent months, while their haul in bitcoin has been paltry, companies infected are suffering…:
London firm launches new AIFM manager hosting platform
Helford Capital Partners launches new fund manager hosting platform aimed at investment professionals launching their own fund under AIFMD:
http://www.hedgeweek.com/2017/08/02/254599/london-firm-launches- new-aifm-manager-hosting-platform
Machine learning, artificial intelligence and robo-advisers: The future of finance?
The topic of machine learning-enabled artificial intelligence (AI) is gain- ing increasing visibility in the world of investment management:
http://www.cityam.com/269679/machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-and-robo-advisers
Microsoft gives UK data centres a big power boost
Microsoft has powered up some of its UK data centres with three new series of VMs allowing customers to run heavy workloads in the cloud:
SR Labs Completes Successful Rebranding as Vela Trading Technologies
SR Labs has become Vela Trading Technologies, retain- ing its product suite and trading infrastructural agenda.
Bankers Ditch Fat Salaries to Chase Digital Currency Riches
Dealmakers and financiers find second wind in crypto-currency & financial technology:
Want To Use Data? Get The Uncut Stuff
Areas once seen as humans only jobs like reading and analysing information can now be done by computers:
New York trading platform investFeed replaces equi- ties for cryptocurrency
investFeed drop U.S. equities from platform and replace them with highly-liquid digital currencies:
A Little Brother of FinTech
Regulation Technology is often referred to as a ‘little brother of fintech’, Regtech is automating compliance:
