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Banco ABC’s FinOps Leap: One Year, Real Results

Before partnering with Pier Cloud, Banco ABC was facing the typical challenges of a growing cloud operation. With a clear focus on optimization, security, and modernization, the institution launched a strategic partnership with Pier Cloud to evolve its FinOps approach in 2024 — adapting to the demands of a fast-changing, competitive technology landscape.

About Banco ABC

Banco ABC Brasil is a financial institution with a broad portfolio that serves both mid-to-large companies and individual investors. It offers high-value, tailor-made financial solutions to meet its clients’ specific needs.

Security is a top priority in Banco ABC’s operations — forming a solid foundation for its own growth and that of its clients. The bank continuously invests in technology, risk management, and operational excellence. This is where Pier Cloud’s platform came in to support and accelerate that evolution.

 

Los desafíos

Initial Challenges

Before implementing Pier Cloud, Banco ABC faced key hurdles:

  • Gestión de costos y optimización: The need to identify and act on cost-saving opportunities within AWS.

  • Cumplimiento y seguridad: Ensuring operations aligned with best practices and regulatory standards.

  • Modernización de aplicaciones: Migrating applications to more efficient, cloud-native models.

  • Team focus and prioritization: Overloaded teams struggling to prioritize tasks due to operational complexity.

  • FinOps maturity: A need to understand where the bank stood in the Cloud Financial Management journey and how to evolve.

  • Lack of financial visibility: Banco ABC couldn’t identify the unit cost of PIX transactions or those related to Open Finance. This created governance issues and limited executive decision-making.

 

The Pier Cloud Solution

The partnership with Pier introduced tools and practices that transformed how these challenges were addressed. Key highlights:

1.Lighthouse:
The tool provided an integrated view of costs, including key indicators and resource efficiency metrics. Additionally, Lighthouse enabled the development of a chargeback model tailored to the bank, which made it possible to calculate the cost per PIX transaction, Open Finance operations, credit card lines, and customer checking accounts.

This level of visibility didn’t exist at Banco ABC before — and it was crucial for the executive team to understand the financial behavior of its transactions and where to direct efforts. Through Lighthouse, Pier Cloud’s platform uses S3 to collect AWS billing data from the client. We then work on the ETL and data processing to build the cost allocation and visibility tailored to the client’s context. We use Athena to query the information.

2.CCA (Cloud Compliance Analyzer): Using custom rules developed in the platform, Pier made available insights into cost-saving opportunities, compliance, and security. The team began using CCA daily to identify where to focus efforts for cost reduction. In addition, CCA helped highlight which instances could go through a rightsizing process.

The CCA collects information via SDK using an assume role in the client’s accounts. With the data gathered, we help clients identify idle resources, apply best practices, and propose technological upgrades — contributing to the optimization and efficiency of the client’s infrastructure.

3. Evaluación de Madurez: Pier Cloud conducted the AWS Cloud Financial Management Assessment within Banco ABC’s environment. Based on the results, we defined a set of clear, prioritized action plans to evolve the bank’s FinOps and governance capabilities.

 

Results in Less Than a Year

  • Increased FinOps maturity: Clear priorities and faster execution, supported by structured processes.

  • Cost and compliance efficiency: CCA enabled fast, precise decisions with measurable impact.

  • Time optimization for teams: Lighthouse made it easy for teams to understand resource usage and act faster.

  • Banking-grade financial visibility: For the first time, the bank gained visibility into the costs of its main financial products (PIX, Open Finance, credit card transactions, and current accounts).
    This transparency led to strategic decisions at the executive level, including new process investments.

     

    Lessons Learned & What Comes Next

    Banco ABC is entering a new phase in its FinOps journey, with strategic priorities on the horizon:

    • Modernización de aplicaciones: Continue migrating to cloud-native models for efficiency and performance gains.

    • Sostenibilidad operativa: Build a stronger foundation for scaling, while improving how the bank prioritizes in a complex environment.

    • Expanded use of Pier Cloud: The partnership will remain a strategic pillar as the bank navigates new opportunities and challenges — solidifying its FinOps maturity.

    Testimonio

    “Our partnership with Pier Cloud has been extremely positive. We’ve matured quickly thanks to a hands-on, direct approach, and the CCA tool has become indispensable in our daily work. We’re confident this partnership will be essential as we face the next wave of modernization and optimization.”

    – Enzo Rozo, Technology Manager, Banco ABC