What’s this cloud that Salesforce blabbering about?
Here is a secret, “It is not a whole new separate cloud”.

Salesforce plays it sly when naming their products. Why not, it’s a business after all. The Financial Services Cloud is a managed package that you install along with some other handy unmanaged extensions in your org and make products and run development cycles on top it. You may find it odd at first in fact call it a heist but is it? Let’s continue…

The word Financial is buzz, is it too a heresy?
    Now we are talking. Well, it does provide a new genome of objects, fields and triggers, but there is a catch, catch -22 all these are custom. Salesforce has provided a completely new data model, two in fact.
The benefit of this data model it that this scaffolding is capable of fitting is any financial problems. So, you don’t need to think about the data model from scratch and worry if it succeeds during the course of development. The flexibility with these models is tremendous and you can always create new custom objects whenever you require.

    You get two data models
  1. Individual Model
  2. Person Model

See these models for yourself
Individual Data Model
This model uses a combination of standard Account and Contact objects, coupled in a unified object view of a person. The standard objects here have been extended with custom fields, record types, and more.

Person Account Data Model

The person account model uses standard Account object to hold all the details about a person. The Account object here is extended with custom fields, record types, and more.

Does Your Business scenario fit in?
Most likely it would. Financial Services Cloud has been made with a great level of details and care. And if you think something is missing, you can always approach in the traditional way and add some customization to it.

What about the Pricing?
Well, that’s nowhere available on their website so far. You will have to set up a call with the salesforce office to know about. But if you an ISV partner with SFDC, then you will likely be provided with an org that has Financial Services Cloud package for free.

Bottom Line
Indeed, you can replicate the above complete data model in your org all by yourself and no one can tell the difference. But, then it will consume a lot of time. And you will be delayed from implementation of your project. That’s okay if you are an organization that likes writing leverything from the scratch. But if you aren’t there is no need to scratch your head you have FSC in your arsenal!



References:
  1. Individual Data Model
  2. Person Data Model