Andy Waroma (Cloud Comrade)
Singapore-headquartered cloud specialist Cloud Comrade has bolstered its efforts to service the financial services market after achieving the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Financial Services Competency.
The cloud computing consultancy and managed service provider (MSP) claims the move sees it become one of just 20 companies in Asia Pacific, and over 100 globally, to have achieved the competency status.
AWS introduced its Financial Services Competency in 2016, becoming one of many other vertical and business application Competencies available to AWS customers at the time.
Broadly, AWS Financial Services Competency Partners can provide cloud-based offerings that help accelerate innovation for banks, insurance companies, capital market firms and payment processors of all sizes.
"We are proud to become an AWS Financial Services Competency Partner, which shows our readiness to cater to the unique needs of Asia's financial services sector as it undergoes a massive disruption,” said Andy Waroma, co-founder and co-managing director of Cloud Comrade.
“With our proven track record in the industry, helping a large insurance company in Singapore and a bank in Southeast Asia with their digital transformation and successful migration to the cloud, we are now well-positioned to help these companies leverage the cloud to drive business growth and innovation.
"Indonesia and Malaysia are very important growth markets for us, with their size and the transformation they are undergoing. The countries are also witnessing a fintech revolution and the financial services sector is expected to be one of the key drivers of the economies.
“As an AWS Financial Services Competency Partner, we can contribute significantly to these countries' digital leap by helping businesses leverage the cloud,” he added.
According to Peter Murray, AWS ASEAN head of Financial Services Industry, financial services customers have a high bar on security and compliance and alignment to industry best practices, which the competency aims to meet.
“The AWS Competency Program is designed to identify, validate and promote AWS partners with the demonstrated AWS technical expertise and proven customer success in financial services,” Murray said.
“Cloud Comrade's work with many valued financial services customers across ASEAN, such as STACS, has been vital in supporting the customers' goals.
“Congratulations to Cloud Comrade for this achievement and we are looking forward to doing so much more together,” he added.
In May this year, Cloud Comrade revealed how it drew upon AWS technology to migrate the IT infrastructure of Malaysian spice powder, curry mixes and flour mixes maker Baba’s to the cloud.
The AWS Premier Consulting Partner led the selection, planning and execution of the migration from an on-premises infrastructure environment to AWS, being Baba’s preferred cloud provider.
"Based on our experience in migration and managed services and a thorough understanding of Baba's vision and business needs for the future, we were confident that the bespoke cloud-based framework we have developed was the right choice for the company," said Waroma at the time.
"It is heartening and immensely fulfilling to make a significant positive impact on an already large and fast-growing organisation like Baba's within a short period of implementation,” he added.
The move was part of a broader digital transformation for Baba’s, with the first phase of the migration handled by Cloud Comrade involving the implementation of SAP S/4HANA on AWS, as well as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications.
