Why Banking and Finance Organizations Love Numecent

The Finance Industry Sought to Modernize Application Management Earlier Than Most Other Verticals

My first exposure to application virtualization was in a finance environment. It was an excellent fit. We had applications that needed to write files at runtime in the install directory, which standard users did not have permissions to write to. We had applications that did not actually require to write files or registry to restricted directories but were programmed to open files or directories with write/modify permissions anyway. We had applications that required specific runtime versions that were not compatible with newer versions running on the same system. Thus, virtualization was perfect for modernizing application management.

Containers enabled our applications to run in their own isolated dedicated virtual file system to avoid opening up permissions for standard users on local systems. Virtual applications were isolated, preventing conflicts with one another or with applications locally installed on the machine. This enabled us to support multiple versions of the same application side-by-side on the same machine, even if they would not work with the native installer.

Unfortunately, enterprise applications continue to present challenges and now the issues are exasperated as the cyber security landscape means organizations must deploy application updates more frequently than ever. This is why there is such a need for a solution that can build on the value proposition of traditional virtualization solutions, providing additional benefits whilst also being simple and extensible enough for organizations to automate application on-boarding and delivery to keep ahead of cyber gangs.

Why the Biggest Banking and Finance Firms in the World Trust Numecent

The Highest Application Compatibility Rate

Numecent’s Cloudpaging technology takes everything you loved with traditional application virtualization solutions and makes it better. You can continue to get dynamic application delivery, you can continue to eliminate install related reboots, you can deliver and execute applications isolated and free from application conflicts BUT where traditional application virtualization solutions failed, we succeed.

Applications that contain drivers, COM+ components services, low level system components etc. could not be delivered with traditional virtualization solutions but can be delivered with Numecent Cloudpaging. Virtually any Windows application can be packaged into our application container format and successfully delivered to any Windows desktop.

A Truly Long-Term Solution to App-V’s End of Life

For banks that relied on Microsoft App-V, Numecent technologies provide multiple future-proof paths to navigate App-V’s end of life. Cloudpager – our cloud-based container management platform – provides support for your existing App-V packages, including automatic optimization of them to run beyond end of life (est. April 2026). This can help you extend the life of your existing packages while instantly gaining modern container orchestration capabilities in the process.

While automatic optimization is available to all Cloudpager customers, many customers decide to take a greenfield approach to application virtualization as they adopt a new solution. Any application that can be packaged with App-V can be virtualized by Cloudpaging. Of course, rather than waiting until apps are repackaged, the beauty of Cloudpager is you can continue deploying your existing App-V packages in their optimized or native format while you repackage so you can instantly establish modern application container management capabilities while transitioning between solutions.

Streamlining and Automating Application Lifecycle Management

Cloudpaging containers can be reused across all modern physical and virtual Windows desktop environments. While other application virtualization tools may only work on the system they were packaged for, Cloudpaging containers can seamlessly lift and shift to any Windows OS in your environment.

This enables you to establish a single packaging format for all your Windows desktops. As Financial institutions continue their adoption of cloud technologies, Cloudpager provides them with a single pane of glass to dynamically provision and manage their entire application estate.

By using our application container and orchestration solutions, you can instantly establish DevOps workflows and capabilities for managing Windows desktop applications. Our non-interactive application packager and Cloudpager APIs enable you to fully automate the application lifecycle, from application packaging to deployment and updates.

Dynamically Provisioning Applications and Updates

Cloudpager also takes the automated application update management to a whole new level. Applications can be managed in Workpods which are logical groupings of applications assigned to a security group.

For example, you may have a Brokers Workpod, Mortgage Team Workpod, and HR Workpod. Each Workpod containing the applications suited to their respective personas. If needed, an application updated to any (or all) Workpod(s) can be rapidly rolled back to a previous revision. This makes delivering application updates dynamically possible, lowering risk if required. Compare this with traditional software distribution tools: if you need to roll back a traditional MSI or EXE deployment, you may have to push an uninstall before then pushing an install of the previous application version. Even then, it is not guaranteed to work due to many vendors not using MSI tables correctly. All that to say, traditional packages can make this process disruptive and time-consuming.

Enhancing Desktop IT Security

With many of our Finance customers going through device refreshes, they are looking at device and operating system modernization as an opportunity to establish hybrid domain-joined and zero-trust approaches. For many, this includes expanding adoption of Azure Virtual Desktop for dedicated and multi-session environments. As such, they require applications to be abstracted from the operating system in a secure containerized environment with granular controls over what to integrate from or isolate to the operating system and the ability to define application dependencies (e.g., provision a specific version of Java with an individual application).

We find larger organizations with a substantial developer community struggle with internal processes preventing them from getting the resources they need in a timely manner. Thus, Cloudpager providing flexible deployment options is optimal for them to establish a mix of auto-deployed applications (via Workpods) and providing them with self-service application access (via Storefronts). The option for developers to access software tools in a self-service manner allows them to choose the specific versions they need, bypassing manual effort on deployment teams.

Ultimately, these flexible deployment options provide administrators with control over which application versions and/or updates are made available in case changes are required. Read more about how application containers enhance enterprise desktop IT security in our prior blog here.

Alleviating Desktop Image Size and Management Overhead

In a conversation with one of our customers at a large financial services firm, an IT executive stated their motivation for incorporating Cloudpaging into their environment was to lower their dependency on Gold images, “aiming to use an updated gallery image direct from Microsoft every month’s patch Tuesday” and utilizing Cloudpaging to dynamically provision applications per user. By virtualizing applications on a per user basis, they can be dynamically provisioned to end users and groups outside of your desktop images.

This enables enterprises to not only achieve a single golden image, but a lightweight one as well.

Standardize on Non-Persistent Enterprise Multi-Session Desktop Environments

According to Microsoft’s own cost calculator, standardizing on Windows 10/11 Enterprise multi-session can save more than 6X on virtual desktop run costs. For many enterprise Finance companies, non-persistent VDI is the key to maximizing cost savings. However, most application virtualization solutions are unable to mitigate application conflicts on shared and/or non-persistent machines.

Cloudpaging’s granular integration and isolation capabilities mitigate risk of data leakage and enable applications with conflicting dependencies to run in harmony.

Increasing Visibility Across Their Application Estate

The importance of reporting and managing user assets cannot be understated. From a cost perspective, it’s critical for optimizing software license costs and adhering to ISV requirements. However, Cloudpager goes far beyond software licensing costs. IT teams must understand what software is available to any given user and/or machine.

Banking and Finance Organizations Depend on Cloudpaging and Cloudpager to Deliver Applications

Application containers were a game-changer for me and my team when I was working in the aforementioned Finance environment. Not only could we address many of the issues that plagued enterprise applications at the time, they also enabled us to deliver applications quickly and dynamically as required to both physical endpoints and session hosts without the need for disruptive traditional installations. Importantly, virtualizing the applications also eliminated the need for install related reboots which could be extremely disruptive in sensitive environments such as on machines on the trading floors.

It is kind of crazy to think Windows Installers became available in the year 2000 but just a few years later some of the largest banks in the world began implementing products like Softgrid before MSI packages were even the most common package type provided by vendors. Getting adoption by some of the world’s major banks was significant on the part of Softricity. Large financial organizations do not tend to take big risks when choosing tools and solutions to use in their environments. These large financial institutions saw past the size of Softricity as a vendor because their product was so awesome and provided so much value.

Fast forward 20 years, the landscape has changed. While financial organizations eagerly embraced virtualization of applications, other companies in different industries found these products to be too complex as the success rate and application compatibility rate was relatively low and the technology required upskilling to implement successfully. Microsoft acquired Softricity in 2005 and the product was developed further, got incorporated into the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and was rebranded as App-V which unfortunately is now set for an estimated end of life in April 2026.

Finance customers require their IT teams to operate efficiently, while ensuring they have the necessary controls to perform their job adhering to the most stringent business and regulatory requirements with low risk.

With our products, they are containerizing all applications they wish to unlock application portability across all physical and virtual Windows desktop environments while delivering a consistently wonderful experience.

See the Power of Containers in Action!

Don’t just take our word for it. Request a live demonstration from our Solutions Architects to see how containerizing your application estate enables you to instantly modernize your approach to Windows application management. In less than 30 minutes, we’ll show you how to go from application upload to deployment across physical and virtual desktops.