Well, that’s one way to do things! UBS Group AG has secured a cloud deal with Microsoft worth hundreds of millions of Swiss francs apparently, according to people familiar with the matter.
The largest bank in Switzerland manages around $2.4 trillion in wealth for clients globally, and has been operating 25 traditional datacenters. This move to the Microsoft cloud is a bid to reduce costs while at the same time complying with strict Swiss privacy laws.
Switzerland being the world’s largest center for offshore wealth, and all.
To that end, the organization has opted to store data at the purpose-built facilities that Microsoft constructed near Zurich and Geneva.
The shift will happen next year, according to people who asked not to be identified as the matter is still private. Still, this would be a big win for Microsoft over rivals Google and Amazon, after the Seattle based firm gambled on building Azure facilities in the country.
But while Microsoft and UBS representatives declined to comment on the size of the deal, the chief information officer at the bank did acknowledge that things are moving in this direction:
“We’ve started to accelerate our journey into the public cloud space. UBS expects significant cost benefits from this strategy, while not compromising on security.”
The exact locations of the installations are kept secret for security reasons.
But this is actually what spurred Microsoft to build facilities in the country to meet demand from local banks, insurers and pharmaceutical companies.
Union Bank of Switzerland plans to increasingly outsource to technology companies, and scale back on the number of its own datacenters over the next four years. It is currently deciding which applications will be shifted to Microsoft, while ensuring no client data is moved.
Love all the secrecy!
