Why did we form a coalition?
Members benefit from the shared knowledge with respect to regulatory topics, setup of services and development, collaborative audits, exit strategies, and skill transfer in general. Today, financial institutions are already conducting collaborative audits with their cloud service providers, e.g. as organized in the Collaborative Cloud Audit Group (CCAG). This has proven to be highly efficient. The ECUC builds on these experiences. The purpose of the ECUC is to unite financial institutions as cloud users on a level playing field. And to channel their requirements into a joint position to leverage European standards for the use of public cloud services in the financial industry.
What do we do?
We have formed different workstreams to ensure continuous progress in the areas Privacy, Security, Governance & Regulatory, Contractual Clauses and Portability, Resilience & Exit Strategy. Each member participates in at least one workstream. Four moderators (institutions) are being elected by the members and lead the coalition for a six months period. This is to ensure a well balanced position across institutes and countries within the ECUC.
Whom are we addressing?
ECUC is currently in conversation with the main Cloud Service Providers, to develop a harmonized set of contractual provisions which shall help cloud service providers and Financial Institutes (FI) to meet the strict regulatory requirements for cloud-based outsourcings. The aim is to assist FIs in making their negotiations with cloud service providers more efficient by reducing the need for time consuming individual agreements to meet regulatory requirements.
ECUC is also in discussions with European regulators and authorities and in exchange with the European Project GAIA-X AISBL.
What could you do?
Before joining the coalition each member signs an agreement with defined rights and obligations. In particular intellectual property and data protection are guaranteed. We are happy to discuss further details of a membership with you. Just contact us. We treat any information confidential.
Are you interested in becoming a member of the European Cloud User Coalition? Contact us and we will schedule a meeting to answer your questions and discuss further steps.