Arca Fondi SGR
Microsoft Azure Local: Hybrid cloud for asset management A distributed ICT infrastructure that ensures nationwide service continuity, control of critical data and scalability of the distribution network, in compliance with the regulatory requirements of the financial sector.
Arca Fondi SGR
Asset management on a national scale
An asset management company founded in 1983, it operates through a distribution network of more than 50 partner banks and financial institutions, covering over 4,500 branches across the entire country. It manages around €54 billion in assets, delivering services to retail and institutional clients through a capillary distribution structure.
Sector
Asset management and financial services
Revenue
Asset management company (public figure: ~€54bn in assets under management)
Headquarters
Milan
The client's voice
Thanks to the collaboration with Retelit and Microsoft and the use of Microsoft Azure Local, we can rely on an infrastructure that combines high performance and full data sovereignty — two essential elements for the financial sector. We now have a platform that enables faster analytics, more efficient services and total control over our information assets, in full compliance with regulatory requirements.
Alberto Capecchi, Head of Information Technology
Arca Fondi SGR
Challenge
ICT infrastructure for nationwide operational continuity
According to the Digital Innovation in Finance Observatory of Università Cattaneo–LIUC, in 2025 67% of Italian financial intermediaries identified upgrading their on-premise ICT infrastructure as a priority to support the growth of digital services — in particular to handle transaction volumes rising 23% year on year and to maintain compliance with the European Union’s new DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) standards. Arca Fondi, a national operator managing around €54 billion of assets under administration and custody through a distribution network of more than 50 partner banks and 4,500 branches, faced the twofold imperative of scaling the delivery of digital services while keeping full control of critical data and complying with the sector’s regulatory constraints.
Sector context
67%
of Italian financial intermediaries ranked upgrading on-premise ICT infrastructure among their 2025 priorities
+23%
year-on-year growth in the transaction volumes to be handled
DORA
the new EU digital operational resilience standard to comply with
Source: Digital Innovation in Finance Observatory, Università Cattaneo–LIUC (2025)
Areas of intervention
The challenges addressed spanned four strategic dimensions:
Managing resource-intensive workloads
Analytical and transactional applications required an infrastructure able to guarantee predictable performance and low latency — essential to operate effectively on a national scale without compromising service quality towards partner banks.
Data sovereignty and control
Financial-sector regulation requires physical and logical control of sensitive data; a standalone public cloud platform was not compatible with these data-governance and residency requirements.
Operational consistency in a distributed architecture
The infrastructure had to unify the management of on-premises and public-cloud components under a single control plane, avoiding operational fragmentation and the multiplication of security and monitoring processes.
Modernising the IT model
The IT team needed to shift from predominantly infrastructure management to delivering added value, freeing resources from the routine maintenance of traditional on-premises assets towards innovation and support for business units.
Solutions
A hybrid cloud platform for unified governance and data sovereignty
Arca Fondi adopted a hybrid cloud architecture based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Local and Azure Arc to run critical workloads close to the data, keeping full regulatory control on a national scale and operational reach across its branches.
Services activated and technologies
On-premises infrastructure
Azure Local in Milan
Hyper-converged on-premises infrastructure that ensures physical proximity to the data and dedicated performance for resource-intensive applications. It allows Arca Fondi to keep critical information assets within its direct control perimeter, in compliance with the financial sector’s regulatory constraints.
Public cloud and analytics
Microsoft Azure for distributed services
Analytical components and scalable services on the public cloud for complex processing and the delivery of online services across the whole distribution network. It handles load peaks without infrastructure constraints, keeping logical and physical separation between on-premises and cloud workloads.
Governance and control
Azure Arc for a unified control plane
Centralised management of cloud and on-premises resources through a single orchestration system. It ensures consistent security, monitoring and compliance policies across the entire hybrid infrastructure, reducing operational complexity and giving the IT team end-to-end visibility.
Results
Predictable performance and data governance in a distributed ecosystem
The hybrid cloud platform enabled Arca Fondi to run critical applications with guaranteed performance, keeping total control over its information assets and accelerating services across the entire national distribution network.
Resource-intensive workloads run with predictable latency and dedicated performance thanks to the on-premises infrastructure housed in the Retelit data center in Milan, with no resource contention.
Data sovereignty preserved: critical information assets remain under the company’s direct control, in compliance with the financial sector’s regulatory requirements and internal governance policies.
Analytics and online services accelerated across the network of more than 4,500 branches, with regulatory and operational consistency managed from a single control plane through Azure Arc.
The IT team is free to focus on value-adding initiatives, delegating infrastructure management to the hybrid platform and reducing the daily operational load.
A replicable approach for your sector
Hybrid cloud and unified governance for operational continuity in finance
Discover how Retelit enables asset management companies and financial institutions to scale their services without compromising on data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.
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