Using ‘Four Zeros’ to boost resilience for smart finance

Technology is transforming financial services, from digital payments to open banking. As societies progressively become cashless, financial institutions need to be prepared to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies to reach end customers.

Although digital transformation is challenging due to factors such as the presence of legacy systems, change is possible with the right capabilities and help, says Huawei’s Digital Finance Chief Executive Officer, Jason Cao.

The 'Four Zeros' approach

Huawei's approach to enhancing financial resilience is encapsulated in the 'Four Zeros' concept, which addresses common pain points in the finance sector: Zero downtime refers to always-on services; zero trust ensures in-depth security; zero-touch guarantees automation; and zero wait means low transaction latency.

This approach aims to develop resilient digital infrastructure that helps financial institutions stay relevant by ensuring secure and uninterrupted services at a large scale.

Achieving a secure modern architecture

The focus on boosting smarter finance comes from the real challenges in the finance sector. The key is to stand in the customer’s position to first understand the challenge and then find the most suitable solution.

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Cao explains that achieving a secure modern architecture involves multi-layer thinking, which is to combine architecture, hardware, software, and engineering methodologies.

“Security, availability, and stability are most important because financial services have a very low tolerance. That is why we establish the Four Zeros goal for new resilience” Cao emphasises.

Huawei provides a series of solutions that advance from active/standby to active-active, and ultimately to a multi-site multi-active high-availability architecture to ensure always-on services. Also, achieving in-depth security across campuses, data centres, and clouds accelerates cyber attack detection, isolation, and recovery.

As a result of working with global financial organisations, Huawei teams have gathered the expertise to work according to specific parameters and different levels of modernisation, which is reflected in the type of solution they provide, Cao says.

Tackling legacy system modernisation

Modernising legacy systems is a significant challenge but also an opportunity for financial organisations. Innovative technologies can enhance public-facing services, such as digital payments and virtual assistants for customer support, increasing financial advantages for institutions.

Modernisation also facilitates the adoption of technologies like Generative AI (GenAI) and cloud computing, which are difficult to implement with outdated architectures.

To tackle this problem, Huawei teams provide support tailored to each organisation's level of preparedness. For those with weaker technical capabilities needing end-to-end solutions, Huawei offers consultancy and advice on strategy planning and architecture design, Cao adds.

Embracing the digital future

The digitalisation of financial services is evolving rapidly in Asia, with China leading in terms of cashless payments. Financial institutions in Southeast Asia have the potential to navigate this digital wave in vibrant ecosystems such as Singapore. Cao believes that digital payments have significantly transformed the finance industry in the region.

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One of the main features that make Southeast Asia a fertile ground for cashless societies is the booming population and younger generations that have a strong demand for digital payments and a more seamless customer experience.

Huawei supports over 3,700 financial institutions globally, leveraging diverse customer experiences and cases to drive digital finance in four strategic directions: accelerating application modernisation, enabling scenario innovation, enhancing data-driven decisions, and building resilient infrastructure.