Technology resilience is no longer about simply keeping systems running. For global banks that operate across multiple markets, regulations and complex technology environments, it is about designing infrastructure that withstands disruption, recovers quickly and continues to deliver services when individual components fail.
For Standard Chartered, that has meant a fundamental shift away from layers of infrastructure towards standardisation, automation and software-defined platforms. Its recent work with Broadcom to modernise its global infrastructure around a secure private cloud reflects that philosophy, with simplification and resilience built into the architecture right at the outset.
In this interview, John Sharratt, Global Head, Technology & Infrastructure, Standard Chartered, discusses how the bank is strengthening its technology resilience, approaching AI as an engineering capability and using automation to simplify infrastructure across a global footprint.
Technology resilience has become a top priority for banks. What does a ‘resilient’ technology infrastructure look like today, and how did that evolve over the past few years?
A resilient technology infrastructure today is one that assumes failure will occur and is designed to continue operating regardless. Over the past few years, resilience has evolved from protecting individual components to protecting outcomes. At Standard Chartered, strengthening our core systems has meant reducing dependency on physical infrastructure, simplifying our estate and increasing geographic resilience through software-defined platforms. The industry has learned that resilience is not achieved through complexity or bespoke engineering. It comes from standardisation, automation and the ability to recover or relocate workloads rapidly when conditions change.
How are you strengthening supply chain resilience without slowing the pace of innovation, and what lessons has the industry learned from recent global disruptions?
The most important lesson from recent disruptions is that resilience and innovation are not opposing forces. In many cases, they are achieved through the same decisions. Standardisation around commodity hardware, common operating models and repeatable designs allows organisations to innovate faster because they spend less time managing exceptions. At Standard Chartered, we deliberately simplify wherever possible and treat infrastructure as a scalable platform rather than a collection of unique systems. Predictability strengthens supply chains while simultaneously improving our ability to introduce new capabilities at pace.
How is Standard Chartered approaching the deployment of AI in infrastructure and operations while ensuring security, explainability and responsible use remain uncompromised?
Our approach begins with viewing AI as an engineering capability rather than a standalone objective. The focus is on solving practical operational problems while maintaining the control standards expected in a global bank. Security, explainability and governance are therefore incorporated from the outset rather than added later. We are also challenging ourselves to think about what commodity AI looks like, favouring scalable and repeatable approaches over highly specialised solutions. As with any critical banking technology, consistency and transparency are ultimately much more valuable than novelty.
Standard Chartered recently partnered with Broadcom to modernise its global infrastructure with a secure private cloud. What were the key principles that shaped this transformation, and share how you expect it to enhance operational resilience, scalability and service delivery across such a diverse global footprint?
The transformation was guided by a small number of simple principles: hyperconvergence, standardisation, simplification, automation and resilience by design. Historically, large infrastructures accumulate multiple generations of technology which increase complexity and operational risk. Our objective was to move towards a software-defined private cloud platform capable of supporting a diverse global business through common operating models. By simplifying the infrastructure stack and treating capacity as a scalable utility, we improve resilience, accelerate delivery and provide greater consistency across the 54 markets where we operate as a super-connector bank. To put this in perspective, Standard Chartered has achieved what many could not in that we have eliminated all SANs and rolled out micro-segmentation across the entire estate without imposing on the applications.
Looking ahead, what technology or infrastructure trends do you expect will have the biggest impact on global banking over the next five years?
The trend I expect to have the greatest impact is the continued commoditisation of technology, including AI. While much attention is focused on breakthrough innovations, the real transformation often occurs when technologies become operationally simple, scalable and economically efficient. We have seen this pattern in virtualisation, cloud computing and software-defined infrastructure. AI is likely to follow a similar path. At the same time, increasing geopolitical complexity will place greater emphasis on sovereign capabilities, geographic resilience and adaptable architectures that can operate effectively across multiple regulatory environments.
