BNP Paribas has extended its partnership with IBM for a further eight years as the French bank looks to ramp up its cloud approach in support of a digital transformation programme.
Extending the life of joint IT services company BNP Paribas Partners for Innovation - which has been running since 2003 - the latest deal sees BNP integrate the IBM Cloud hosted in data centres dedicated to the bank.
BNP Paribas will also strengthen its hybrid cloud "as a service" capabilities, using IBM solutions offered via its public cloud to support the development of new things like test and applications environments.
IBM says that the new cloud approach will enable BNP Paribas to gain agility, ensure the performance of its IT systems and ensure security. It is also designed to improve the time to market for new digital applications and services.
IBM Hybrid Cloud solutions should also increase services capabilities through the use of multiple environments, such as dedicated, public and private clouds, ensuring integration between these different environments.
However, BNP stresses that it will not use the public cloud for either customer data or production environments with sensitive information.