Today’s business, consumer and operational demands have fundamentally changed. The world is very different from several years ago, technological advances are far more accessible, and financial institutions must open their minds to truly embrace this new era. Technology is not just a component of business transformation – it is critical to achieving successful outcomes and staying competitive. Though cloud computing has been a reality since before the dawn of the 21st century, banks, credit unions and the financial industry, in general, have been slower to adopt the trend of moving business applications to the cloud. While cloud platforms are popular across other industries, they are not yet ubiquitous in financial services. Previous concerns surrounding data privacy, regulatory compliance and resource allocation all contributed to banks and credit unions staying with legacy, on-premise applications.
However, this hesitation for cloud adoption has significantly eased within the banking sphere. Adopting cloud-based applications has now become a strategic imperative and preferred direction for forward-thinking institutions when evaluating their business infrastructure and processing environment.
Kinective and The Cloud
Kinective began embracing the cloud revolution early, and due to the overwhelming receptivity to cloud solutions from our financial institution partners, we have established a comprehensive cloud-first strategy. We’re actively working towards providing all Kinective solutions in the cloud while supporting our existing customer base in their migration to our cloud platform.
Cloud adoption has been on a steady incline in recent years, ushered in by the ubiquity of cloud offerings (think Google, Microsoft 365, Amazon, Salesforce), significant enhancements to security protocols, and increased demand for both location and device-independent access to services by employees and customers. This last element became critical during the pandemic and has remained no less – and possibly even more – important in today’s hybrid work environment.
Our newer solutions, including Kinective SignPlus™, are designed and brought to market exclusively as cloud-based solutions. SignPlus represents our commitment to this strategy – a groundbreaking digital document workflow solution that streamlines transactions with end-to-end eSignature capabilities, automated workflows, and enhanced auditing services, all delivered through our secure cloud infrastructure.
Why Kinective is Cloud-First
So many of our clients, both longstanding partners and recent additions, are now embracing the cloud model. For executives who want to understand the strategic advantages, here is a comprehensive overview of the many benefits of cloud-based solutions for financial institutions, and specifically with Kinective’s cloud-first approach.
One underlying and important fact to remember is that Kinective focuses exclusively on financial institutions, which is why we adopted a cloud-first strategy that takes into consideration all factors that should be paramount in every bank or credit union’s long-term technology strategy.
Significant Cost Savings
With a cloud solution, there is no need for your institution to acquire, maintain, update, replace or manage its own servers. By offloading the often hidden or overlooked costs associated with operating systems and supporting system software, databases, virus protections, firewalls and more, significant savings can be realized by your institution. Additionally, you’ll save on ongoing operating system maintenance fees and reduce the administrative burden on your IT staff.
Automated Data Replication and Backups
The cloud offers an added level of data protection and automation for your bank or credit union. At Kinective, our cloud infrastructure handles all necessary data backups without intervention from your organization. Additionally, integrated data replication ensures uninterrupted business operation and continuity, giving you peace of mind that your critical data is always protected and accessible.
Built-in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Since the cloud is always available, the need for traditional disaster recovery and business continuity planning is significantly reduced. At Kinective, our cloud service meets the highest standards for business continuity, so there is no need for your financial institution to cover our applications as part of your comprehensive business continuity plans – we’ve got you covered.
Enhanced Security and Protection
Integrating with the cloud leads to increased security and protection for your financial institution. Kinective’s cloud solutions utilize enterprise-grade security protocols as a central part of our access and authentication systems. Thus, your institution benefits from a supplemental layer of security above and beyond what would be available with a traditional premise-based solution, including advanced threat detection and monitoring.
Automatic Software Updates and Feature Delivery
A cloud-based solution enables Kinective to regularly deliver software upgrades, maintaining state-of-the-art product quality without disrupting your live production environment. In our cloud-based implementations, the latest updates, patches, feature enhancements and security improvements are applied automatically. Using an Agile development approach, we can deliver product and feature enhancements at a higher frequency than ever before.
In many instances, new functionality is available in the cloud version before it can be deployed to premise-based solutions. For example, advanced workflow automation features and enhanced reporting capabilities are continuously being added to our cloud solutions, ensuring our cloud clients always have access to the most innovative and powerful tools available.
The Strategic Advantage of Being Cloud-First
There are numerous additional benefits associated with moving to the cloud that extend beyond operational improvements. By switching to the cloud, your financial institution can reduce total cost of ownership, increase security posture, add levels of automation that improve efficiency, and acquire a more cohesive and scalable technology strategy that premise-based solutions simply cannot offer.
For financial institution executives, the cloud represents more than just a technology shift – it’s a strategic enabler that allows your organization to focus on what matters most: serving your customers and growing your business, while leaving the infrastructure management to technology experts.
Let Kinective Help Your Financial Institution
Given current business realities and competitive pressures, transitioning from legacy software and embracing cloud adoption are not just logical steps – they’re strategic imperatives. Cloud adoption becomes a must-have component for business continuity and represents an investment that delivers rapid returns for forward-thinking financial institutions.
If you’re interested in learning more about moving to the cloud, we’re here to help. Our dedicated and knowledgeable team of implementation specialists is ready to work with you and your financial institution to develop a comprehensive cloud migration strategy and support your transition to our advanced cloud platform.
Ready to explore how Kinective’s cloud-first solutions can transform your operations? Contact us today to schedule a strategic consultation and discover how our cloud-based solutions can drive efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance your competitive advantage in today’s digital banking landscape.
