Published 21st October 2026
Nayakanti Prashant
3rd Gen Banker & Citizen Lobbyist – Bengaluru
DC777 CO777 DTD777
The Intro
The customer sees a banking outage.
Behind it may be a cloud outage.
The Trigger
The recent Google Cloud outage affecting services in parts of
the world made me pause.
Several financial services were among those affected, bringing
an invisible dependency into the customer's view.
But what caught my attention was something bigger than the
outage itself:
In July 2026, the UK designated Google Cloud, AWS, Microsoft
and Oracle as Critical Third Parties to the financial sector.
The reason is significant: disruption at these technology
providers could potentially affect multiple financial firms or markets at the
same time.
That made me wonder:
As banking becomes increasingly dependent on cloud
infrastructure, should the customer also have some visibility into that
dependency?
The Act I — The
Bank We See, The Infrastructure We Don't
When we open a banking app, we see the bank.
We see the logo.
We see our balance.
We make a payment.
We transfer money.
We pay a bill.
But behind that familiar interface sits a much larger
technology ecosystem.
Cloud infrastructure.
Data centres.
Networks.
Technology service providers.
The customer may never see these layers.
Until something goes wrong.
The recent Google Cloud outage was a reminder that a
disruption deep inside the technology stack can eventually become a very
visible customer experience.
The customer sees a banking outage.
Behind it may be a cloud outage.
The Act II — Should
the Customer Know?
This made me think about a slightly different question.
If a bank's digital banking services depend materially on a
particular cloud or technology provider, should the customer have some
visibility of that dependency?
Not the architecture.
Not server locations.
Not security-sensitive technical details.
Just perhaps a simple disclosure:
Digital Banking Technology Provider
[Provider / Providers]
For illustration:
Bank X → Google Cloud
Bank Y → AWS
If such information could be disclosed safely, could it help
customers understand that different banks may also have different technology
dependencies?
And perhaps that knowledge could help a customer think about
continuity and backup relationships.
Not because every customer needs to become a technology
expert.
But because digital resilience can also become part of
customer resilience.
The Act III — From
Transparency to Resilience
Of course, there are legitimate reasons why a bank may not be
able to disclose every technology dependency.
Security.
Privacy.
Confidentiality.
Third-party contractual arrangements.
So this is not a suggestion to publish a bank's technology
blueprint.
The question is whether there could be a safe and meaningful
level of disclosure.
Perhaps:
What customers need to know
rather than
Everything the bank knows.
If two banks have different critical technology dependencies,
a customer who maintains relationships with both may potentially have an
additional layer of continuity.
It doesn't eliminate disruption.
It doesn't guarantee that one bank will always remain
available.
But it may give the customer another dimension of awareness.
The Citizen Observation
The recent cloud outage made me think beyond the outage
itself.
We normally think about banking diversification in terms of:
Two banks.
Different products.
Different service needs.
Could there also be a digital-resilience dimension?
If material technology dependencies can be disclosed without
compromising security, perhaps customers could understand whether their banking
relationships have different underlying technology dependencies.
The question I am left with is simple:
Should a bank customer know enough about critical technology
dependencies to make an informed continuity choice?
Not the entire technology stack.
Just enough to understand the risk.
One observation at a time.
The Closing Thought
We know the bank we choose.
We may not know the infrastructure that helps keep that bank's
digital services running.
Perhaps the next evolution of digital banking transparency is
not about revealing more technology.
Perhaps it is about revealing just enough to help the customer
understand resilience.
The cloud may be invisible.
The customer's banking journey is not.
April 11 — Proposed Digital
Transactions Day
Digital Transactions Day can also remind us that a digital
transaction is supported by a much larger digital infrastructure.
The transaction may take seconds.
The infrastructure behind it must remain available.
April 11 — Proposed Digital Transactions Day.
A brief philosophy around the Digital Transactions Day concept
can be read at https://movethebarrier.blogspot.com/
Digital Payments are only a sub-set of Digital Transactions
Disclaimer
This is an independent citizen observation based on publicly
reported information and my personal perspective on digital banking resilience.
The suggestion regarding disclosure of technology/cloud
dependencies is a citizen proposal for discussion, not a recommendation that
banks disclose sensitive infrastructure information.
Security, privacy, confidentiality, regulatory requirements
and contractual obligations would need to be considered before any such
disclosure.
This post does not suggest that customers should open or
maintain accounts with particular banks or technology providers, nor does it
imply that having accounts with different providers guarantees continuity
during an outage.
The Joy of Digital Transactions
Nayakanti Prashant
3rd Gen Banker & Citizen Lobbyist – Bengaluru
Advocating Digital Transactions Day (April 11)
https://in.linkedin.com/in/prashantnayakanti
Author’s Blogs
https://prashantnepayments.blogspot.com
https://innovationinbanking.blogspot.com
