Along with the collaboration and migration to the cloud environment, OP will be able to provide its customers with better services and adapt quickly to the digitalising world.
"Our vision is to be the leading and most appealing financial services group in Finland. Acting as a pioneer and innovator in the financial sector is part of the realisation of our vision. By using datacenters located in Finland, we can contribute to digital growth in Finland while developing Finnish innovation activities," says Timo Ritakallio, President and Group Chief Executive Officer, OP Financial Group.
"OP Financial Group's cloud migration is a major step for both the financial sector and Finnish society as a whole. Our datacenter region that will be completed in the next few years will bring the Microsoft cloud services ever closer to people in Finland. Our datacenters running on emission-free electricity and generating district heating by means of waste heat recovery will provide a highly short response time and the opportunity to process and store data in Finland. We are proud that OP Financial Group will be among the first customers utilising the new datacenter region," says Mervi Airaksinen, Managing Director, Microsoft Oy.
In cloud services, data are processed on the cloud platform via the internet, instead of own physical servers. The adoption of cloud services will not only improve services provided to customers but also OP's ability to combat cybercrime and react to data security threats.
"Our top priority is to keep customer assets safe and store confidential data securely. The cloud migration will foster our ability to take good care of our customers' asses and confidential information in future too," says Ritakallio.
Better services for customers
OP Financial Group's migration to the Microsoft cloud services will provide a solid foundation for the development of better services and business. The cloud migration guarantees that OP will continue to provide its customers with the best possible services and customer experience.
"The cloud migration to the Microsoft Azure environment will make it possible to make new services and applications available to customers faster than before. Use of services too will become quicker and simpler and information relevant to customers in our systems will be transmitted more efficiently," says Kasimir Hirn, CIO of OP Financial Group.
Cloud migration will contribute to the operational reliability of OP's services and clarify the management of different services. Due to the migration, OP's ability to react, for example, to fast changes in demand for services will improve.
"The more efficient processing of large amount of data enabled by the cloud migration will make it possible to apply artificial intelligence in the offerings of OP's services, among other things. By utilising our extensive data asset more effectively, we can develop better customer experience and customer service for our customers’ various needs," says Hirn.
Since 2019, OP Financial Group has published its data balance sheet that describes data use as part of business and the value creation related to data.
Training cooperation to develop competencies
OP Financial Group and Microsoft will initiate a large-scale training cooperation within which OP's employees will be trained as experts in Microsoft cloud technologies in the coming years. OP Financial Group and Microsoft share the worry about the future shortage of experts, and the key goal of the training programme that is about to get underway is to strengthen and add to employee competencies in the changing business environment.
Media enquiries:
OP Financial Group Communications, tel. +358 10 252 8719, viestinta@op.fi
Microsoft, Communications Lead Pekka Isosomppi, tel. 040 516 2399, pekka.isosomppi@microsoft.com