BNP Paribas announced the signing of a new multi-year partnership agreement with IBM Cloud, extending a collaboration that began in 2019 when IBM Cloud was first hosted in the bank's data centers. This partnership was credited with helping BNP Paribas build a robust technological infrastructure to support its digital transformation efforts.

The bank plans to dedicate a new area within its data centers specifically for IBM Cloud by 2028. This move is intended to boost the bank's resilience and provide necessary redundancy to ensure continuity of critical banking services such as payments while maintaining the security of customer data and information systems.

This initiative aligns with the European DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) regulation, which focuses on enhancing financial institutions' operational resilience, including business continuity and IT risk management. By creating this new cloud infrastructure, BNP Paribas aims to improve risk management related to cloud service providers, thereby supporting business continuity and customer data protection.

With the renewed partnership, BNP Paribas will expand its capabilities through the integration of GPUs on IBM Cloud into its infrastructure, supporting the deployment and experimentation of generative AI use cases across various business units.

BNP Paribas continues its efforts towards application modernization, adopting a cloud-native approach using containers and Red Hat OpenShift, which is IBM's Kubernetes container management platform. The solution is designed to develop modular, scalable, and portable applications, offering enhanced flexibility in managing banking services and enabling new application deployment, particularly in payment systems.

Marc Camus, Chief Information Officer of BNP Paribas, stated, "We continuously invest in cutting-edge technologies to strengthen the resilience of our infrastructures and drive innovation for our clients, employees, and partners. By combining GPUs as a service, a dedicated, state-of-the-art environment within our data centers, and a cloud-native infrastructure, we are strengthening our technological foundation, as well as the security and the compliance of our information systems."

Alan Peacock, General Manager of IBM Cloud, added, "For decades, IBM and BNP Paribas have worked together to build the banking infrastructure of the future, underpinned by the necessary resilience. Since then, the bank has joined IBM’s growing ecosystem of financial institutions and technology partners leveraging IBM Cloud for Financial Services to drive their mission of providing the best digital banking experience to customers, with security and compliance at the forefront. This latest milestone in our partnership will provide expanded enterprise-grade Cloud services across the entire bank to unlock new possibilities with AI and cloud innovation not only for BNP Paribas but for enterprises around the world."

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BNP Paribas is a leader in banking and financial services in Europe, operating in 64 countries with nearly 178,000 employees, including more than 144,000 in Europe. The Group's activities span commercial and personal banking, investment and protection services, and corporate and institutional banking, among others. BNP Paribas has a Corporate Social Responsibility approach in all its operations, contributing to sustainable development while maintaining group performance and stability.

IBM provides global hybrid cloud and AI services and consulting expertise. Operating in over 175 countries, IBM helps entities in financial services, telecommunications, and healthcare with digital transformation efforts. IBM's offerings are underpinned by innovation in AI, quantum computing, and industry-specific cloud solutions.