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August 11, 2020
Standard Chartered Bank partners with Microsoft to become a cloud-first bank.
SINGAPORE and REDMOND, WASHINGTON., Aug. 11, 2020 — Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced a three-year strategic partnership to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation through a cloud-first strategy. This partnership marks a significant milestone for Standard Chartered in making its vision for virtual banking, next-generation payments, open banking, and banking-as-a-service a reality. Leveraging Azure as a preferred cloud platform, the companies will also co-innovate in free banking and real-time payments to help the bank unlock new banking experiences for clients.
Standard Chartered Bank is a leading international banking group.
As part of its digital transformation, Standard Chartered will adopt a multi-cloud approach. Significant applications, including its core banking and trading systems and new digital ventures such as virtual banking and banking-as-a-service, will be cloud-based by 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. The bank will also adopt a cloud-first principle for all new software developments and significant enhancements.
As technology reshapes the banking industry, Standard Chartered recognizes that a cloud-first strategy is critical to the bank’s ambition to make banking simpler, faster, and more convenient. By being digital-first, the bank will meet the demand for seamless banking virtually anytime, anywhere, and make banking more accessible to people across its network.
Michael Gorriz, Group Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered, said, “Cloud is a cornerstone of Standard Chartered’s strategy to meet our clients’ present and future banking needs. Cloud providers have invested massively in the reliability and automation of infrastructure and platforms. Using cloud services improves our ability to be agile and innovative while increasing our operational efficiency and resilience. As the financial industry disruption continues, we can focus on client benefits by deploying our solutions quicker and allowing for faster integration of new business models and partners. To realize our digital ambitions, Standard Chartered has chosen Microsoft as a strategic partner, and this partnership marks a major milestone for the bank in adopting a cloud-first approach.”
Bhupendra Warathe, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Transformation at Standard Chartered, added, “The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the need for businesses and banks to be resilient. With the increasing trend of an always-on digital economy, commercial and consumer clients are looking for applications and services that empower them to do online banking flexibly and efficiently. The speed and scale of Azure’s continuous innovation allow us to innovate with the latest AI services to meet evolving client needs. We can pilot new apps in one market and scale them rapidly across others. It is especially important for a bank with a footprint as broad and diverse as ours.”
Standard Chartered will adopt Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud platform to meet the bank’s need for resilient data centers and cloud services and addressing customers’ security, privacy and compliance requirements across the bank’s global footprint.
The first set of capabilities to move to Microsoft Azure will be Standard Chartered’s trade finance systems, allowing seamless cross-border trade for the bank’s corporate and institutional clients.
The partnership will also advance the bank’s digital workplace transformation with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams providing modern productivity and collaboration tools to Standard Chartered’s 84,000 employees across its 60 markets.
Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Financial Services at Microsoft, said, “Cloud computing is an enabler for financial institutions to modernize their infrastructure and systems. They gain the agility they need to respond to competitive pressures, regulatory environments, and customer demand. We are committed to helping Standard Chartered Bank in its ongoing digital transformation journey as it strives to address evolving customer needs and build the next generation of banking experiences.”
Source: Microsoft Corporation
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 2:15 PM | View the original post
Michelin Announces 2021 Road Atlas with Featured Driving Tours for Summer and Fall Getaways
GREENVILLE, S.C., Aug. 10, 2020 — As a map publisher and leading mobility company, Michelin is debuting a new road atlas for travelers in North America. The 2021 Road Atlas: USA CANADA MEXICO features exclusive driving tours from the famous Green Guide collection.
According to the AAA 2020 Summer Travel Forecast, Americans will take over 700 million trips from July through September. Road trips will account for 97% of all summer travel, making it the most preferred form of transportation this summer.
Travelers will enjoy nearly 30 scenic drives across the U.S., from Alaska’s glaciers to Arizona’s deserts to Maine’s coast. Michelin’s driving tours guide travelers around North America with stops in national and state parks along the way. Six drives across Canada take travelers from the otherworldly Alberta Badlands to the Canadian Rockies, with a stop at stunning Banff National Park.
“Michelin has guided travelers to the best trails, hotels, and culinary destinations for more than 120 years. It is excited to offer a new version of its road atlas,” said Eileen Osteen, director of travel guides and map sales for Michelin North America. “As travelers pivot to road trips during the pandemic recovery, Michelin’s new 2021 Road Atlas is the ultimate companion for inspiring local and regional drives.”
The 2021 Road Atlas also includes 1,000 travel center locations for accessible pit stops. A unique format with flip-of-the-page navigation enables travelers to select a destination from the main map easily. Travelers will find 245 inset city maps and GPS coordinates to more than 2,500 parks in this new spiral-bound edition.
Michelin is a French multinational tire manufacturer based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes région of France. Headquartered in Greenville, S.C., Michelin North America operates 19 major manufacturing plants.
Source: Michelin North America
|GlobalGiants.Com|
Edited & Posted by the Editor | 1:47 AM | View the original post
