Milan, 28 September 2021 – QUID, Italy’s leading provider of consumer credit solutions, announces availability of its Qinetic PaaS (Platform as a Service) on IBM Cloud. With this project, QUID joins IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) growing ecosystem of more than 100 global systems integrators (GSIs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and SaaS vendors and FinTechs supporting IBM Cloud for financial services today. The new partnership will allow QUID to rapidly scale and deliver a highly secure, cloud-compliant consumer credit platform, enabling its customers to comply with stringent regulatory requirements governing data security and privacy.   Qinetic, QUID’s comprehensive digital platform, will be delivered as a service on IBM Cloud and will be tailored to the needs of customers, whether they are large banks or small financial specialists, who will be able to rapidly scale their consumer credit offerings and meet the demands of today’s consumers. The platform is designed for consumer credit as a service and, thanks to IBM Cloud for Financial Services, offers by-design levels of availability, security and compliance required by this market. The financial service industry represents a growing portion of the $1 trillion business opportunity generated by the hybrid cloud, and is expected to grow by nearly 20% by 2024. Across all markets, financial institutions are accelerating innovation to meet increased customer expectations against a backdrop – such as the one brought about by the pandemic – that has caused digitalisation to gain strong momentum and requires greater flexibility and expertise in navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape.   The challenge: Increasing levels of security and privacy and control over data Since 2016, QUID has offered financial institutions a highly automated and simplified consumer credit management platform, called Qinetic. The platform leverages twenty years of experience in sales and after-sales processes combined with the ability to capture rapidly changing customer needs. Over the years, QUID has continued to develop Qinetic as a full digital platform for credit management, making it increasingly flexible and adaptable to business models undergoing deep changes. The platform was written as native cloud and based on Kubernetes managed containers, currently available also on IBM Cloud. In particular, QUID chose a high reliability proximity solution for Italian banking customers on Milan-based IBM Cloud datacenter, with a Disaster/Recovery service on IBM Cloud datacenter based in Frankfurt.   QUID’s customers engaging in financial services are therefore able to navigate stringent regulatory requirements with greater ease and process their customers’ data according to high levels of security and privacy in the marketplace, thanks to the integrated support provided by IBM Cloud for Financial Services ensuring compliance and enterprise-level encryption technology.   IBM Cloud for Financial Services: Technical details As the first cloud ready for the financial services industry, IBM Cloud for Financial Services relies on IBM’s fourth-generation computing capabilities and “Keep Your Own Key” encryption delivered through IBM Hyper Protect to help partners and their respective customers keep control over their data by enabling secure financial transactions. Embedded controls also help customers accelerate innovation, unlock new business opportunities and lower the cost of compliance.   IBM Cloud for Financial Services is built on IBM Cloud, the most secure and open cloud for enterprises, using Red Hat OpenShift as the primary Kubernetes environment for managing enterprise-level containerized software. IBM Cloud includes more than 200 cloud-native PaaS services available through APIs to create new cloud apps. Developers and ecosystem partners can rely on such an environment to develop and upgrade processes in line with the needs of today’s customers.   “Qinetic is designed to provide end customers with easy access to credit, affording banks and financial partners the opportunity to scale their offerings quickly to meet the needs of the consumer finance market, which is undergoing major changes”, said Stefano Bertoli, CEO at QUID. “A cutting-edge cloud-native platform, unparalleled in the Italian market, available on IBM Cloud for Financial Service, enables us to address the security, compliance and reliability needs of financial institutions and customers who consider us a as trusted partner capable of establishing and encouraging long-term relationships”, concluded Bertoli.   “We designed IBM Cloud for Financial Services to help financial institutions accelerate hybrid cloud adoption while reducing costs and risks associated with industry compliance,” said Nico Losito, Vice President, IBM Technology for Italy.   “IBM Cloud allows customers and partners in the ecosystem to rely on constant compliance with regulatory requirements and a zero-trust approach to security that aims to protect every user, every device and every connection at all times. With IBM Cloud for Financial Services, partners like QUID can support financial institutions on their journey to modernisation, accelerating the country’s digital transition.”