The IT architecture of the financial sector is facing comprehensive upgrading and evolution, for which databases have become one of the core drivers: The financial sector is accelerating its in-depth integration with technology, with its industrywide digital transformation (DX) upgrading to the digital first initiative, which redefines the value that digitalization brings to enterprises. Financial enterprises are currently showing new development trends such as mobile interconnection, digintelligence empowerment, opening-up and integration, and comprehensive security trust. The rapid changes in financial business have put forward a series of new requirements for IT infrastructure. As an important basic tool, databases become the focus of future upgrading and transformation in financial industry and play a critical role in supporting business development, meeting regulatory requirements, reducing risks, and controlling the costs for system building within a reasonable range. At the same time, the development of database technology, in combination with the continuous empowerment of emerging ICT technologies such as cloud native, big data, blockchain, and AI, will ensure the security and reliability of the new-generation financial business systems and help financial enterprises develop towards a higher stage of DX.

Chinese distributed databases are growing rapidly, in further alignment with the needs of financial enterprises for innovative development: Relational databases are the most widely used databases by financial enterprises. According to IDC, in 2021, the financial sector's spending in relational databases‒related fields exceeded US$400 million, accounting for about one-sixth of the spending in the overall China relational databases software market, and it ranked first in the spending in the on-premises relational database market among various industries. Although the traditional centralized relational databases have been applied intensively in the financial sector, with the rapid innovative development of new financial services, it is increasingly difficult for the traditional technical architecture to meet the needs for agile launch and comprehensive guarantee of new business. With its transparency, resiliency, security, and extensive support for complex business logic, distributed databases are not only well compatible with applications of traditional financial business, but also better suited to the needs of financial innovation in the digital era.Chinese distributed databases are increasingly favored by financial enterprises due to their unique advantages in the market, business models, cost performance, and policy fields. Due to regulatory, compliance, and security requirements, on-premises databases is still a primary choice for users in many industries.

This white paper will focus on the on-premises distributed databases in the financial sector.