Developed in conjunction with Bank of America and IBM subsidiary Promontory, the platform will offer a means for banks and their tech suppliers to run key applications and workloads in a purpose-built compliant cloud.

Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, bills the initiative as one of the most important collaborations in the financial services industry cloud space.

"This industry-first platform will allow Bank of America to use the public cloud, putting data security, resiliency, privacy and customer information safety needs at the forefront of decision making," she says. "By setting a standard that addresses the concern of hosting highly-confidential information, we aim to drive the public cloud to a safety level that is unmatched."

IBM says the financial services-ready public cloud will help give financial institutions an opportunity to more efficiently assess the security, resiliency and compliance of their technology vendors. Participating financial services software providers may benefit from the platform's security validation. Only ISV or SaaS providers that demonstrate they comply with the platform's policies will be eligible to deliver offerings through the platform.

"The financial services-ready public cloud represents an ongoing focus from Bank of America, IBM and Promontory to help develop a technology ecosystem where regulations can be addressed," says IBM SVP Bridget van Kralingen. "Together we plan to help our customer address their ongoing compliance requirements, coupled with highly scalable, standardized capabilities that will be built to help serve today's modern financial services industry."