A partnership with a firm to handle data via the cloud will enable DBS Bank to slash costs, handle rapid computer usage growth and get nearer to an energy sustainability target, DBS Bank said.

DBS Bank today announced it is partnering with data centre provider, Equinix to put one of the Singapore-headquartered lender’ data centres in Singapore up into the cloud, allowing the bank to slash costs and handle fast growth in computer usage.

The new, smaller data centre used by DBS Bank will be about a quarter of the size of its existing facility and slash operating costs by 75 per cent, it said in a statement. 

The move is an example of how banks, wealth managers and other financial institutions are using remotely hosted services to handle information storage, thereby cutting costs and also farming out the job to specialist firms.

DBS Bank said its computer workload has doubled in the last three years and are expected to grow significantly in future. The Equinix partnership will enable the bank to continue growing in a sustainable way, it said.

The bank has made digital technology a centrepiece of its overall corporate strategy. Initiatives include its work with IBM’s Watson cognitive computing team to develop new services harnessing ideas around artificial intelligence and robo-advice, for example. 

DBS has previously announced it will shift half of its computer workload to the public cloud by 2018. Last year, the bank launched cloud partnerships with Amazon Web Services and Pivotal Cloud Foundry. It has also used Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity technology, Office 365, in the workplace. The bank also said its strategy will cut energy consumption. In October, DBS joined RE100, a global renewable energy campaign that draws together businesses committed to using 100 per cent renewable energy. DBS said it wants to power all of its Singapore operations using renewable energy by 2030.