A credentials store definition identifying a remote credential store is received. The credential store definition includes access information to enable access to the remote credentials store. A credentials object is created in an internal database based on a credentials object definition. The credentials object identifies a security credential to retrieve from the remote credentials store to access an external resource. At runtime, a request to access the external resource is received, and based on receiving the request, the security credentials identified by the credentials object are retrieved from the remote credential store using the access information. The retrieved security credential is provided to a processing component to access the external resource.