One should not mistake Mumbai-based Shamrao Vithal Cooperative (SVC)
Bank as a regular urban cooperative bank. Not only has the bank grown
exponentially – in the past seven years, the bank has scaled up its
turnover from Rs 1,600 crore to 13,000 crore. From presence in 37
places, it now boasts of being in 120 locations. “We have grown by
nearly six times in less than a decade, only because of the
technological advancement the bank committed itself to,” says Ravikiran S
Mankikar, General Manager, IT.
The bank not only has an in-house IT team, it is also the only bank in India that has its core banking on a virtual platform. Even the core banking business is done via virtualisation – the backbone for cloud. The bank caters to 10 lakh customers through 129 branches and has implemented a three-tier architecture-based banking solution on a distributed database called Genius I, which provides a single window solution for
all banking products required by its customers.
Not just that, the bank has been given the permission by the Reserve Bank of India to offer its software to other banks.
“Our technological infrastructure is at par with the top banks in the public and private sectors. We offer software support to other banks on cloud, where this technology has had a big impact,” says Mankikar, on being asked if cloud has a role to play in the bank’s IT backbone.
Currently, SVC Bank has 32 other banks using its software, including the Pune Urban Cooperative Bank, Vidya Sahakari Bank and Hindustan Cooperative Bank in Mumbai, Abhinav Sahakari Bank, and the Guardian Bank in Bangalore. The bank has two models where it licenses the software. Direct offering means the other bank procures the license to use the software and the cloud model, where the SVC Bank hosts everything on its end and the other bank uses these apps, and SVC operated the software for them.
Mankikar adds that cloud is the technology to bank on, thanks to the ease of deployment and scaling it offers. “Suppose a bank has a resource problem and needs more memory, more space and more servers. These provisions can be taken care of seamlessly by cloud,” he says. The advantages of cloud prompted the bank itself to use cloud instead of a physical model.
Talking specifically about the banking industry, Mankikar talks about the advantages of using cloud. Take deployment, for instance. “Even if you add more branches, more users and need to scale up the business, it becomes far easier when you have cloud. This flexibility is not there with a physical infrastructure,” adding lower turnaround time and faster delivery of products and services as other examples.
For SVC Bank, using cloud happened about two-and-a-half years ago and Mankikar says it was a natural add-on to what they were doing and it was only about shifting base to cloud platform. Cloud has also helped the bank shave off costs. He gives an example of physical servers, for starters. “From 100 physical severs we now have just six servers. We are saving a lot on power that would have been needed to run them as well as use air-conditioning for the area where they were placed,” he says. The only difference is that the six servers that they do have are slightly more high-end.
And what about the hurdles when it comes to deployment of cloud? “Like most other things, technology takes time to fix itself; it took us three to four months to fine tune our operations on cloud, but that’s nothing new for any new technology. We are enjoying using cloud,” he says.
The bank not only has an in-house IT team, it is also the only bank in India that has its core banking on a virtual platform. Even the core banking business is done via virtualisation – the backbone for cloud. The bank caters to 10 lakh customers through 129 branches and has implemented a three-tier architecture-based banking solution on a distributed database called Genius I, which provides a single window solution for
all banking products required by its customers.
Not just that, the bank has been given the permission by the Reserve Bank of India to offer its software to other banks.
“Our technological infrastructure is at par with the top banks in the public and private sectors. We offer software support to other banks on cloud, where this technology has had a big impact,” says Mankikar, on being asked if cloud has a role to play in the bank’s IT backbone.
Currently, SVC Bank has 32 other banks using its software, including the Pune Urban Cooperative Bank, Vidya Sahakari Bank and Hindustan Cooperative Bank in Mumbai, Abhinav Sahakari Bank, and the Guardian Bank in Bangalore. The bank has two models where it licenses the software. Direct offering means the other bank procures the license to use the software and the cloud model, where the SVC Bank hosts everything on its end and the other bank uses these apps, and SVC operated the software for them.
Mankikar adds that cloud is the technology to bank on, thanks to the ease of deployment and scaling it offers. “Suppose a bank has a resource problem and needs more memory, more space and more servers. These provisions can be taken care of seamlessly by cloud,” he says. The advantages of cloud prompted the bank itself to use cloud instead of a physical model.
Talking specifically about the banking industry, Mankikar talks about the advantages of using cloud. Take deployment, for instance. “Even if you add more branches, more users and need to scale up the business, it becomes far easier when you have cloud. This flexibility is not there with a physical infrastructure,” adding lower turnaround time and faster delivery of products and services as other examples.
For SVC Bank, using cloud happened about two-and-a-half years ago and Mankikar says it was a natural add-on to what they were doing and it was only about shifting base to cloud platform. Cloud has also helped the bank shave off costs. He gives an example of physical servers, for starters. “From 100 physical severs we now have just six servers. We are saving a lot on power that would have been needed to run them as well as use air-conditioning for the area where they were placed,” he says. The only difference is that the six servers that they do have are slightly more high-end.
And what about the hurdles when it comes to deployment of cloud? “Like most other things, technology takes time to fix itself; it took us three to four months to fine tune our operations on cloud, but that’s nothing new for any new technology. We are enjoying using cloud,” he says.
Link : http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/pioneering-change/158546/on
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