Cloud Drive Mapper for finance and insurance

Finance and insurance are among the most heavily regulated sectors in the global economy. Cloud storage brings real benefits (collaboration, resilience, cost) but also introduces constraints and questions that regulators will ask harder questions about than in almost any other industry. Cloud Drive Mapper is the Microsoft 365 file layer designed to let financial organisations get the benefits of cloud storage without the friction: real-time access with a small on-device footprint, full compatibility with Citrix and Azure Virtual Desktop, no persistent client data on the endpoint, and a zero-access architecture that IAM Cloud can explain in audit-friendly detail.

1.5M+ active users worldwide

~5,000 organisations run CDM

ISO 27001 certified since 2016

01

Real-time file access with hybrid resilience

Finance staff move constantly: office to home, home to client visit, back office to trading desk, London to the branch in Manchester. The files they need have to be the current version, not the version that was current before they left. The OneDrive sync client's eventual-consistency model produces the classic "which version is the current one?" question at exactly the wrong moment.

Cloud Drive Mapper works in real time, talking directly to Microsoft Graph on demand. Files are always the current version, from any Windows device the user signs into.

Because CDM is a hybrid real-time and sync client rather than a purely real-time one, if connectivity drops mid-edit (on a client visit, in transit, on a patchy hotel wifi) the user can continue editing, save cleanly and close the application. The change queues locally and pushes back the moment connectivity returns. That is meaningfully different from purely real-time drive-mappers, where the same interruption can prevent saving.

02

VDI, kiosk and non-persistent environments handled properly

VDI penetration in financial services is higher than in almost any other industry, largely for security reasons: no data on the endpoint, centralised patch management, faster incident response, easier compliance audit. Citrix and Azure Virtual Desktop estates are common, often mixed with RDS or Omnissa Horizon for specific workloads.

The OneDrive sync client is a persistent problem in these environments. It consumes profile space aggressively, fails on non-persistent sessions, and produces the sign-in delays that trading floors and client-facing teams have zero tolerance for.

Cloud Drive Mapper is built for the way VDI actually works. It handles non-persistent Windows sessions cleanly, does not accumulate profile bloat, and its small cache footprint keeps FSLogix container sizes manageable. Multi-session and mandatory-profile deployments work. Kiosk-style shared workstations work. For firms that already have a mature VDI investment, CDM makes Microsoft 365 file storage available inside that investment without requiring a parallel redesign.

03

Full compatibility with finance and insurance software

The long tail of finance-specific software largely predates cloud-native design and expects a Windows drive letter or UNC path. Portfolio management systems, actuarial modelling packages, underwriting platforms, claims workflow tools, core banking back-office applications, statistical software, market data terminals with file-based export, custom Excel add-ins.

Cloud Drive Mapper presents Microsoft 365 storage as virtual network drives with real file paths. If it works with a Windows file server, it works with CDM.

04

No persistent files on device

CDM does not create a persistent local cache of files. Content is streamed from Microsoft 365 to the device at the moment a user opens it, and released when they close it. Three regulatory and compliance benefits follow.

First, a lost or stolen device does not contain a residual copy of client data at rest. The device itself has no client material to leak, subject only to the transient in-progress edits captured by the sync queue. Second, incident response is simpler: if a device is compromised, there is no local file inventory to enumerate; the compromise is scoped to what the user actively opened during the session. Third, data minimisation principles built into UK GDPR, EU GDPR and equivalent regimes are naturally supported.

Cloud Drive Mapper by itself does not deliver regulatory compliance; that comes from your controls, your Microsoft 365 configuration, your governance framework. What CDM does is remove a class of risk that traditional sync-based file access creates.

05

Zero-access architecture, in audit-friendly detail

One of the harder questions in a financial-services vendor review: "if the vendor's own systems are compromised, what does an attacker gain inside our tenant?" For many third-party tools, the answer is uncomfortable, because the vendor holds tenant-wide credentials that authenticate to your tenant.

Cloud Drive Mapper's answer: the attacker would not, as a result, gain access to your tenant. CDM operates purely with delegated permissions. IAM Cloud holds no credentials that authenticate to your Microsoft 365 environment. The mechanism a compromise would need to exploit does not exist. Verifiable at admin consent. The Zero-access architecture guide sets it out in the detail a security review team will want to see.

06

Enterprise-scale SharePoint and Teams for productivity and collaboration

Microsoft 365 has become the collaboration backbone in most financial services firms: Teams for deal rooms and matter-team coordination, SharePoint for departmental document control, OneDrive for individual work. Where the OneDrive sync client falls over at scale (large client libraries, VDI, non-persistent devices), Cloud Drive Mapper keeps the collaboration model working.

A wealth-management team with 100,000 client files in a SharePoint site can still browse and update via CDM. A Teams site for an underwriting cohort with hundreds of thousands of items opens instantly. Scale that would defeat the sync client is unremarkable for CDM.

The whole goal was to implement record retention within OneDrive and within the SharePoint environment. Cloud Drive Mapper allowed us to have all that by moving to OneDrive, and then supporting a OneDrive connection as if it were just a normal, everyday network connection.
Software Support Engineer, US regional bank

Read the full US regional bank case study →

07

Retiring on-site file servers

Many financial services firms still run on-site file servers as the primary store for client files or back-office documentation, often because earlier SharePoint migration attempts foundered on user-experience or application-compatibility issues. Cloud Drive Mapper removes both blockers. The move can happen without changing how relationship managers, analysts, or back-office staff open, save or search for files, because the drive letter stays the same.

The savings are direct: hardware refresh cycles avoided, on-site backup infrastructure retired, disaster-recovery scope reduced. Once the file server is decommissioned, the SharePoint content also becomes usable by Microsoft 365 Copilot.

08

Copilot-ready SharePoint content

Microsoft 365 Copilot only sees content that lives in SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams. As long as client files and back-office documentation live on an on-premises file server, Copilot cannot use them.

Cloud Drive Mapper is what moves the content into a place Copilot can reach. The oversharing-remediation work that Copilot readiness also requires matters especially in a sector where accidental disclosure of client, HR or trading information has real regulatory consequences.

09

Familiar file experience for staff

Adoption in a regulated environment is expensive: the compliance overhead of rolling out any user-facing change is real, retraining costs money and time, and firms that ask staff to change how they work during a busy quarter tend to lose productivity across the transition.

Cloud Drive Mapper looks like a file server to the user. The Z: drive that was there for years is still there. Folders and files open the way they always have. Behind the scenes, storage has moved to SharePoint. From the user's point of view, nothing changed.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Cloud Drive Mapper help us meet regulatory retention requirements?

Cloud Drive Mapper does not itself deliver retention or immutability; those controls come from Microsoft Purview retention labels, SharePoint retention policies and your own governance framework. What CDM does is remove common file-access obstacles that make regulatory compliance harder: content stays inside Microsoft 365 where audit and retention controls actually apply, no persistent copies sit on user devices to enumerate, and IAM Cloud never holds credentials that authenticate to your tenant.

Where does our data live, and is it kept in-region?

Your file content lives in your Microsoft 365 tenant, in whichever geography Microsoft assigns for that tenant (UK, EU, US and so on). Cloud Drive Mapper streams files directly from your tenant to your users' devices; IAM Cloud is not in that data path. The configuration and metering data IAM Cloud does hold about your CDM deployment is processed in UK and EU regions. Full detail is in the Data Protection Agreement and the Zero-access architecture guide, both linked below.

Does IAM Cloud have access to our client data?

No. Cloud Drive Mapper operates purely with delegated permissions inside your Microsoft 365 tenant. IAM Cloud holds no credentials that would authenticate to your tenant. Only your own signed-in users can access your content through CDM, and only within their own existing M365 permissions. If IAM Cloud's cloud systems were compromised, an attacker would not, as a result, gain access to your tenant.

Does Cloud Drive Mapper work on iPads that client-facing staff use in meetings?

No. CDM is a Windows product; it covers the Windows portion of your device estate: laptops, desktops, VDI sessions, kiosk-style workstations. Client-facing staff on iPads or iPhones continue to access the same SharePoint and OneDrive content through Microsoft's own SharePoint and Teams mobile apps, which are well-optimised for those devices.

What happens if connectivity drops mid-edit, on a client visit or between offices?

Cloud Drive Mapper is a hybrid real-time and sync client. In normal use it fetches and saves in real time. If connectivity drops while a user is working on a file, they can continue editing, save cleanly, close the application and safely restart the machine; changes queue locally and push back the moment connectivity returns. That distinguishes CDM from purely real-time drive-mappers where a mid-edit connection loss can prevent saving.