- UBS plans to have more than 50% of its applications running
in the Microsoft Azure cloud
- Initiative will help UBS provide innovative products and
services to clients, further empower employees and advance
sustainability goals
- UBS and Microsoft co-develop products and solutions to meet
the digital needs of the bank and financial services
industry
ZURICH and REDMOND,
Wash., Oct. 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday,
UBS and Microsoft Corp. announced a landmark expansion of their
partnership to accelerate UBS's public cloud footprint over the
next five years. Through this transformational initiative, UBS
plans to have more than 50% of its applications, including critical
workloads, running on Microsoft Azure, now UBS's primary cloud
platform. The partnership furthers UBS's "cloud-first"
strategy and the modernization of its global technology estate.
Through this partnership, UBS will have access to the most
comprehensive cloud platform, trusted by more than 95% of Fortune
500 companies, with a rich set of productivity and collaboration
tools, enabling the firm to increase the speed at which it can
deliver and improve upon its digital experiences for clients and
employees. At the same time, Azure will help advance UBS's
sustainability initiatives, drive operational efficiencies, and
maintain its standards for compliance and security —
providing strong foundations on which to scale UBS's rate of cloud
adoption.
"Our cloud strategy has fundamentally changed the way we
operate, allowing us to reinvigorate our technology estate and
reimagine how we build applications for our clients," said
Mike Dargan, UBS Group chief digital
and information officer. "Closely partnering and collaborating with
Microsoft has and will continue to create tremendous value for our
clients, our employees, the firm and our shareholders. The
developments and learnings that stem from this partnership will
benefit the financial services industry and beyond."
In 2018, when UBS announced its cloud strategy, leveraging its
strategic partnership with Microsoft, it planned to move one-third
of its applications to public cloud within four years, but
accomplished this goal early in February
2021. Now, the partnership goes beyond just consuming cloud
services to include the co-development of innovations and greater
collaboration in areas like carbon reduction.
"UBS is a forward-thinking leader in the financial services
industry, and Microsoft has been fortunate to co-develop innovative
applications that meet complex, regulatory requirements with their
engineering teams over the past several years," said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Cloud +
AI, Microsoft. "Our expanded partnership will continue to
accelerate the organization's ambitious digital transformation
plans, applying the power of the Microsoft Cloud to equip UBS with
the agility and reliability to deliver for their clients."
Advancing digital
sustainability
In line with the firm's sustainability goals, UBS continues to
move certain technology platform workloads from its on-premises and
private cloud servers to Azure. In some use cases, this has
resulted in the energy consumption of these workloads to be reduced
by up to 30% to date.
Together, UBS and Microsoft also co-developed a Carbon Aware
API, an open-source solution that provides recommendations on how
to schedule workloads that require heavy compute power during times
when clean, renewable or low-carbon sources of electricity are most
available. They then provided their solution to the Green Software
Foundation so it could be shared with large and small companies
around the world.
Enhancing client and employee
experiences with artificial intelligence
UBS and Microsoft are implementing and further exploring ways in
which artificial intelligence and data can be used to
enhance services for clients and employees. For example, in
Switzerland, UBS is currently
operating two applications that utilize conversational AI
capabilities to respond to client e-mail inquiries.
Unleashing innovation and driving
greater business insights on a trusted platform
To support UBS's "cloud-first" strategy and further drive
innovation, Microsoft actively brought its Azure confidential
computing services to Switzerland.
This provided UBS with a new functionality to protect and secure
data sharing internally across all of UBS's business divisions,
while maintaining the bank's compliance and security standards. As
a result, UBS can now develop additional business insights and
uncover new opportunities for innovation for its clients and
employees.
In addition, UBS will leverage Microsoft Power Platform —
including Power Apps and Power Automate — which will provide
employees with the ability to quickly build professional-grade
applications, create automated workflows and connect disparate data
sources.
About UBS
UBS convenes the global ecosystem for investing, where people
and ideas are connected and opportunities brought to life, and
provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional
and corporate clients worldwide, as well as to private clients in
Switzerland. UBS offers investment
solutions, products and impactful thought leadership, is the
leading global wealth manager, provides large-scale and diversified
asset management, focused investment banking capabilities, and
personal and corporate banking services in Switzerland. The firm focuses on businesses
that have a strong competitive position in their target markets,
are capital efficient and have an attractive long-term structural
growth or profitability outlook.
UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has
offices in more than 50 regions and locations, with about 30% of
its employees working in the Americas, 30% in Switzerland, 19% in the rest of Europe, the Middle
East and Africa and 21% in
Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs
more than 72,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on
the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital
transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an
intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every
organization on the planet to achieve more.
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SOURCE Microsoft Corp.