Cathay Financial Holdings Collaborates with AWS to Build Cloud Data Platform, Enhancing Real-Time Analysis

Cathay Financial Holdings (CFH), a diversified financial institution in Taiwan, embarked on a comprehensive digital transformation in 2015. Aiming to become Asia's leading financial institution, CFH began digitizing its insurance, banking, and securities sectors to provide more convenient and integrated financial services. It established a dedicated Digital Data and Technology Center (DDT) to drive this transformation.

Cloud adoption emerged as a key strategy, as CFH’s on-premises data architecture was siloed, resulting in data redundancy and inefficiencies. Furthermore, data was batch processed on a fixed schedule, making it difficult to respond quickly to rapidly changing customer needs. Moving to the cloud could improve agility through highly automated and integrated data infrastructure and establishing Infrastructure as Code.

In 2020, CFH launched a seven-year multi-cloud transformation plan in collaboration with AWS. Marcus Lopez, Chief Technology Officer at CFH, explains, “AWS provided CFH with technical expertise and comprehensive support in system architecture, data management, regulatory compliance, and talent development.”

To overcome the complexity of migrating its data to the cloud, CFH worked with AWS Professional Services. AWS experts guided CFH in creating a secure framework to meet regulatory requirements during migration, while also strengthening internal auditing mechanisms. Together, they designed a cybersecurity framework compliant with internal standards and regulations, incorporating international best practices.

AWS Professional Services helped CFH establish a landing zone architecture using AWS Control Tower for deploying a multi-account cloud environment. This setup allowed CFH to rapidly deploy new workloads while ensuring compliance with CFH's security policies and best practices. A centralized team at CFH now oversees the new environment, utilizing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) for secure networking, AWS Direct Connect for data privacy, and AWS Security Hub for monitoring and enhancing the company’s security posture. CFH and AWS Professional Services jointly liaised with local financial authorities to ensure ongoing compliance and provide industry insights contributing to evolving sector guidelines.

CFH also worked with AWS experts to overcome the bottlenecks in its on-premises data architecture by launching a cloud data lakehouse. The custom framework was built using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for scalable data storage, AWS Glue for data integration, Amazon EMR for Hadoop analytics, Amazon SageMaker for machine learning, and Amazon Redshift as a highly flexible data warehouse. This cloud-based data architecture streamlines processes to facilitate real-time analysis of large volumes of data.

As CFH progressed with cloud adoption, it faced a growing demand for talent. CFH worked with AWS Training and Certification to upskill and cross-skill employees with technical expertise on the cloud. “AWS is more than just a vendor to us. They helped implement a program that enhanced professional skillsets across the organization while fostering cross-departmental collaboration and knowledge sharing,” says Joe Liang, Vice President of CFH. The enterprise launched its three-year Next-Gen Cloud Talent Program, involving 200 employees across eight key roles, each with a tailored learning path. These seed employees come from 30 departments and four CFH subsidiaries.

The 6-month training includes hybrid on-demand and instructor-led courses as well as hands-on labs and gamified learning. This approach serves to improve understanding and increase motivation with a framework to suit every learning style. Additionally, employees are earning AWS Certifications to validate their skills in areas such as cloud architecture, data analysis, machine learning, and security. CFH also participated in gamified competitions such as AWS DeepRacer and experiential workshops to introduce new perspectives on internal cloud innovation.

AWS Training and Certification experts also recommended CFH establish a structured talent development program and incentive system to drive digital transformation across the organization. The company’s Human Resources department implemented the recommendation. AWS learning progress and achievements are now integrated into performance evaluations, with senior executives participating in training and assessments.

With AWS's guidance, CFH built its first cloud-based financial data platform for Taiwan for real-time analysis, laying a strong foundation for future advancements. By utilizing elastic cloud resources for parallel data processing, CFH has accelerated its extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipeline to deliver processed data faster. “Our collaboration with AWS led to a new cloud-based data platform that boosted data processing efficiency and improved real-time analysis capabilities fivefold,” Lopez says. “AWS is a long-term strategic partner in driving our cloud adoption success.”

To further support its digital transformation, every six months, a new group of employees will begin training, with top performers from each group serving as mentors for the next. The program aims to achieve over 350 AWS Certifications by the end of 2025, with 70 percent focusing on AI. Looking ahead, CFH remains focused on improving customer experiences, strengthening security measures, and making data-driven decisions. The anticipated launch of a new AWS Taipei Region in Taiwan will further support CFH’s efforts to deliver secure and diverse financial services that comply with local regulations and meet the evolving needs of its customers.