AWS expands into financial cloud market in Korea
No Kung-fun, head of Financial Services Industry of AWS Korea, speaks during a press conference at the company's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Amazon Web Services (AWS), a global top cloud computing service provider, is expanding its presence in Korea's financial market as customers look for flexibility in an increasingly uncertain market, an official at its Korean branch said Wednesday.
“In 2019, regulation was revised to allow cloud services in the financial industry. The demand for digital financial services has exploded in the wake of the pandemic in 2020, and the government's launch of the MyData service last year, which allows customers to manage their own financial data, has increased demand for cloud from many financial customers,” No Kung-fun, head of Financial Services Industry of AWS Korea, said during a press conference in Seoul.
No elaborated that as uncertainty grows in the markets, data-driven decision-making is increasingly important to companies in the financial sector, and cloud computing services that allow them to make such decisions quickly are becoming more important.
“While companies are making plans for post-pandemic, one thing is certain ― uncertainty is greater than ever. And because companies know they can't predict the market in the same way they did before the pandemic, they're shifting to reacting quickly to uncertainty rather than setting specific directions and strategies. This shows the difference in competitiveness between companies based on how they use cloud services, when they use them and which services they use,” he added.
Kim Joo-hyun, head of KB Financial Group's Group Cloud Center, speaks during a press conference at AWS Korea's headquarters in Seoul, Wednesday. Korea Times photo by Baek Byung-yeul
As an example of cooperation with a domestic financial company, AWS Korea introduced KB Financial Group to the use of a mix of its legacy systems, private cloud systems and public cloud based on AWS. KB especially developed the KB One Cloud system, a public cloud platform that all of its affiliates are jointly using, in 2021.
“The positive changes since the opening of KB One Cloud are the establishment of an agile development culture, rapid service implementation, flexible infrastructure and increased use of digital new technologies,” Kim Joo-hyun, head of KB Financial Group's Group Cloud Center, said.
Kim added that there were problems associated with the use of cloud computing services such as increased costs and a shortage of IT engineers.
As for reducing the cost of cloud operations, he said that AWS offers cost-reduction programs such as the strategic business review (SBR) and well-architected review (WAR) to ensure efficient cloud operations.
To reduce the cost of using the cloud service, KB Financial Group is currently shutting down its development environment system at night. This is rare in the Korean financial sector because shutting down infrastructure is not an easy decision in an industry that prioritizes maintaining stable services. However, Kim said the group's decision has brought a significant cost reduction.
Recruiting cloud engineers was a key part of internalizing the technology, so KB Financial Group has been using AWS's training program to let its engineers acquire certifications and technical know-how, Kim added.