SINGAPORE AND REDMOND,WASH. - Media OutReach - 11 August 2020 - Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced a three-year strategicpartnership to accelerate the bank's digital transformation through a cloud-firststrategy. This partnership marks a significant milestone for Standard Charteredin making its vision for virtual banking, next-generation payments, openbanking and banking-as-a-service a reality. Leveraging Azure as apreferred cloud platform, the companies will also co-innovate in open bankingand real-time payments to help the bank unlock new banking experiences forclients.

Embarkingon a cloud-first strategy

As part of its digital transformation, StandardChartered will adopt a multicloud approach, wheresignificant applications, including its core banking and trading systems andnew digital ventures such as virtual banking and banking as-a-service, will becloud-based by 2025, subject to regulatoryapprovals. The bank will also adopt a cloud-first principle for all newsoftware developments and major enhancements.

As technology reshapes the banking industry, StandardChartered recognizes that a cloud-first strategy is critical to the bank'sambition to make banking simpler, faster and more convenient. By beingdigital-first, the bank will be able to meet the demand for seamless banking virtuallyanytime, anywhere, and make banking more accessible to people across itsnetwork.

MichaelGorriz, Group Chief Information Officer of Standard Chartered, said, "Cloud isa cornerstone of Standard Chartered's strategy to meet the present and futurebanking needs of our clients. Cloud providers have invested massively in thereliability and automation of infrastructure and platforms. Using cloudservices improves our ability to be agile and innovative, while increasing ouroperational efficiency and resilience. As disruption in the financial industrycontinues, we can focus on client benefits by deploying our solutions quickerand allowing for faster integration of new business models and partners. Torealize our digital ambitions, Standard Chartered has chosen Microsoft as astrategic partner and this partnership marks a major milestone for the bank inadopting a cloud-first approach."

BhupendraWarathe, Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Transformation at Standard Chartered,added that "The pandemic has shone a spotlight on the need for businesses andbanks to be resilient from a risk mitigation, cost and security perspective. Withthe increasing trend of an always-on digital economy, commercial and consumer clientsare looking for applications and services that empower them to do onlinebanking from anywhere, flexibly and efficiently. The speed and scale ofcontinuous innovation offered by Azure allows us to innovate with the latest AIservices to meet evolving client needs. We can pilot new apps in one market andscale them rapidly across others. This is especially important for a bank witha footprint as broad and diverse as ours."

StandardChartered will adopt Microsoft Azure as a preferred cloud platform to meet the bank'sneed for resilient data centers and cloud services and addressing customers' security,privacy and compliance requirements across the bank's global footprint.

Thefirst set of capabilities to move to Microsoft Azure will be StandardChartered's trade finance systems, allowing for seamless cross-border trade forthe bank's corporate and institutional clients. 

Thepartnership will also advance the bank's digital workplace transformation with Microsoft365 and Microsoft Teams providing modern productivity and collaboration tools toStandard Chartered's 84,000 employees across its 60 markets.

Co-innovating the future of banking

Standard Chartered will also use Microsoft Azureartificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics capabilities to enhance andautomate banking processes as well as deliver hyper personalization of itsclient products and experiences. Co-innovation in open banking application programminginterface (API) and Internet-of-Things-based, real-time payments will also helpthe bank unlock new banking experiences for clients.

Bill Borden, Corporate Vice President of WorldwideFinancial Services at Microsoft said, "Cloud computing is an enabler forfinancial institutions to modernize their infrastructure and systems, to gainthe agility they need to respond to competitive pressures, regulatoryenvironments and customer demand. We are committed to helping StandardChartered Bank in its ongoing digital transformation journey as it strives toaddress evolving customer needs and build the next generation of bankingexperiences."

Addressingthe social needs of communities in the emerging markets

Standard Chartered strivesto understand the evolving needs of its communities and be an enabler forchange. As a part of the strategic partnership, the bank and Microsoft willexplore sustainable finance and business initiatives to expand sustainabilityacross the industry.

Editors notes:

Link to Michael Gorriz'sblog "Whycloud adoption is not an option but a necessity for banks"

About Standard Chartered Bank

We area leading international banking group, with a presence in 60 of the world'smost dynamic markets, and serving clients in a further 85. Our purpose is todrive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritageand values are expressed in our brand promise, Here for good.

StandardChartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges.

Formore stories and expert opinions please visit Insights at sc.com. Follow Standard Chartered on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

AboutMicrosoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT"@microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloudand an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and everyorganization on the planet to achieve more.

For more news andinformation, visit https://news.microsoft.com/en-sg/