WITH growth of the local data center industry surging, financial organizations must develop further their digital offerings to satisfiy customer expectations, according to a ranking official of ePLDT Group.
“The need for a more convenient payment experience has resulted in the increasing number of digital transactions. This will continue not only because of preference but also due to the emergence of new markets and players that offer digital payment options,” said Nerisse Ramos, ePLDT’s senior vice president and chief operating officer.
“To sustain this growth, financial institutions need the appropriate IT [information technology] infrastructure that’s capable of meeting their demands and responding to challenges,” she added.
Based on the latest PayPal study, the Philippines is well on its way to becoming a cashless nation as traditional (physical credit card, bank transfer, Internet banking, checks, etc.) and new payment methods are now primary payment options here. This trend is backed by the steady increase of financial technology (fintech) start-ups in the country, which stood at 60 last year, according to the Fintech Philippines Startup Report by Fintech Singapore.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, on the other hand, cited an industry report, showing that the transaction value of the Philippine fintech market is projected to reach $10.5 billion by 2022, up from the estimated $5.7 billion for this year.
Meanwhile, the National Retail Payment System is targeting to raise electronic retail payments to at least 20 percent by 2020.
Given these findings, ePLDT is optimistic that the data explosion coming from digital payments growth will result in financial institutions tapping data centers to provide support in key areas, such as the assurance of business continuity and the protection of sensitive customer information.
Financial service providers need fast and dependable connectivity to support digital payment activities. A data center’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines their responsibilities regarding guaranteed uptime.
These hubs are designed with concurrent maintainability features that give complete infrastructure redundancy, thus, enabling scheduled and emergency maintenance to take place sans affecting the entire system. Furthermore, purpose-built data centers are robust enough to withstand natural disasters.
Financial institutions require airtight security, compliance and efficiency. Additional security features given by data center providers are important since the numbers of cyber attacks as well as natural and operational disasters increase.