BNY Mellon’s Eagle Inks Microsoft Cloud Deal

Eagle, a subsidiary of BNY Mellon, has for years offered a private-cloud service through its Access platform. The deal with Microsoft will see it build a multi-tenant, hybrid cloud offering that will be hosted by Azure, and is targeted specifically at buy-side firms.

“This will be a new data management solution built for the cloud, and designed to support the challenges that firms face today with growing data complexities,” says Mike Fitzgerald, CIO at Eagle.

In particular, he says, the new platform will allow investment managers to collate and analyze data in new ways that might previously have not been possible without a cloud backbone. It will also enable the vendor to roll out upgrades and implement technology advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence.

“Given growing data complexity, the industry is challenged in both managing data and creating business value and new insights around that data,” he continues. “By working with Microsoft, we can leverage their cloud platform to manage data globally and make that same data available to clients locally. The collaboration also allows Eagle and our clients to work with new development alliances and application vendors that will now be able to co-create on one platform. Our work with Microsoft will also facilitate the utilization of new technologies such as business analytics, machine learning, and robotics, as well as other new innovations, and then deploy those capabilities at a much faster pace than ever before.”

Plans to build a new platform were originally announced by Eagle at its 2016 client conference, Engage16. Talks with Microsoft developed from there, Fitzgerald says, with this announcement arising as a result of Eagle’s “longstanding relationship with Microsoft.”

While this announcement is specific to Microsoft Azure, he says that Eagle’s technology is built in a “cloud-agnostic” fashion and that it plans to work with all major cloud providers according to client preferences and guidance.

The company is currently working with a number of clients to deliver capabilities into production later this year, Fitzgerald adds.

Separately, Microsoft also announced a partnership with Saxo Bank on April 24, which will see the bank’s entire technology stack run on the tech provider’s cloud services.

“The future of financial services is cloud-based, and by partnering with Microsoft we take part in shaping this future. Saxo Bank was a fintech long before the term was created, and it is a natural step for us to also pioneer cloud-based solutions in financial services,” said Kim Fournais, CEO at Saxo Bank, in a statement announcing the agreement.