ISLAMABAD: State Bank of Pakistan Deputy Governor Sima Kamil has stressed the importance of investing in data storage to reduce dependence on foreign-based cloud services.

She was speaking at the launch of the country’s first hyperscaler financial in-country Cloud Services by Khazana Enterprise with an investment of $10 million on Wednesday, while the technological support is extended by Huawei Technologies Ltd.

Ms Kamil added that data security and privacy were an important part of the financial services and the in-country cloud service would give more control securing the sensitive information.

“The in-country cloud service reduces latency and improves efficiency by providing faster access and also gives a boost to the economic growth and was cost-effective too,” she added.

SBP deputy chief stresses need for more investment in data storage

The speakers at the event said that the financial sector pays hundreds of millions of dollars for cloud services to companies outside the country.

Huawei Cloud Pakistan CEO Shahzad Rasheed said that the upcoming time will completely change the way banks have been operating.

He added that this digital transformation of organisations is not possible without using artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning and these digital drivers need to be hosted somewhere on a cloud.

Huawei Cloud, as one of the three hyperscalers with a federated cloud available in Pakistan, differentiates itself by providing software services and out-of-the-box solutions with a single click for digital banks.

“Huawei is utilising around 25pc of its total revenues on research and development (R&D) to spur growth through innovation,” Mr Rasheed said.

It was highlighted that as digital Pakistan grows the data storage requirements also increase that has to be stored somewhere either physical storage or on a cloud and there were benefits of cloud over physical data storage.

Khazana Enterprise CEO Nadeem Khan stated that Khazana’s National Cloud services will establish a robust and secure infrastructure for businesses and public sector organisations to store, manage, and analyse their data.

Memorandums of understanding were signed between Khazana Enterprise and several fintech companies including Raqami Islamic Digital Bank, HengShan and TitliS Technology.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2023