Does it make sense for Financial Institutions to consider moves to the cloud? Services such as email and file servers in the cloud provide greater resiliency for FI’s in the event of disasters. The opposite side of that coin is the trustworthiness of Technology Service Providers (TSP’s). Reciprocal right to audit is an exceptionally sticky point, and the FFIEC guidelines need to provide clearer guidance as to what constitutes the reciprocal right to audit.
From a financial point of view, outsourcing IT functions makes sense. but from an audit point of view, TSP’s can’t provide enough assurance that services are secure enough to ensure safety. Maybe in the future.