SUCCESS STORY

STT GDC India aids City Union Bank to pursue business excellence

Jun 14, 2022
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City Union Bank (CUB) Ltd is one of the leading scheduled commercial banks in the private sector with a significant presence in urban, semi-urban and rural centres in South India. The bank’s segments include Treasury, Corporate Banking, Retail Banking and other banking operations.

 

CUB offers Personal Banking, Corporate Banking and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Banking Services. Its online banking services include utility bill payments, mobile banking, online shopping, railway ticket booking, etc. The bank offers a plethora of digital services like CUB Mobile Banking-mBank Plus, Mobile Passbook (mPassbook), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) for funds transfer across the banks and digital signature authentication for corporates as second-factor authentication.

 

The bank operates Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Bills Recycler Machines (BRMs) in approximately 1,800 locations, including over 760 off-site ATMs. It has installed check acceptor KIOSKs and self-passbook printing KIOSKs. It offers CUB mobile wallet, which is a mobile-based software application and caters to customer utility services through mobile phone.

 

CUB’s technological leadership can be gauged from the fact that it was India’s first bank to introduce on-site humanoid (robot) in November 2016. Dubbed as Lakshmi, the robot is designed to assist customers with banking operation queries.

 

Customer Challenge

 

CUB is one of the oldest private banks in Southern India. It started its operations in 1904. With a bulk of its business based in Tamil Nadu, as more than two-thirds of its branches are in the state; the bank’s performance is also intricately linked with the macroeconomic conditions. Over the years, the bank has seen numerous business cycles, yet it has managed to grow consistently due to its well-managed business model. One of the reasons for this consistent growth has been CUB’s relentless pursuit of business productivity. With a bulk of its clientele comprising micro, small and medium enterprises; the bank realised that every rupee saved was equivalent to every rupee earned. This business philosophy was applied to all of its banking operations, including the deployment of technology.

 

As part of its diversification strategy, CUB has introduced a plethora of products and services for the benefits of its customers. It has partnered with numerous companies like LIC and Qatar-headquartered Doha Bank QSC, to provide various facilities like insurance products and e-remittances. To cater to this bouquet of services, CUB required avant-garde technological solutions that were not only scalable but also easy to deploy. Not to forget, it had to be economical as well. To resolve this business challenge, CUB decided to opt for outsourcing strategically and decided to decentralise for business excellence. It worked with different partners for network maintenance and hosting of its data centres.

 

Over the years, as the banking operations grew, so did the spread of its outsourcing map. With multiple data centres in different cities, CUB was looking for a single service provider that could provide multiple-city presence as well as robust infrastructure. The bank wished to consolidate its function with one resilient vendor for ease of use and cost validation.

 

"The partnership with STT GDC India has enabled us to focus more on the business side and not worry about the technological aspects. We are now able to scale up according to the business needs, and not have to bother about tech challenges."

Sankaran G Deputy General Manager, CUB

 

STT GDC India Solution

 

In 2013, CUB decided to consolidate its technology operations with STT GDC India. The bank used state-of-the-art STT GDC India data centres in Chennai and Bengaluru to access reliable and secure infrastructure to host critical applications. STT GDC India provides infrastructure provisioning along with necessary power and cooling to run the data centre, helping CUB to focus on its core business, namely banking operations.

 

As STT GDC India is carrier-neutral, CUB can access the services through multiple network providers, thereby bringing in business resilience. The success of this partnership can be gauged from the fact that CUB has migrated its entire workload on STT GDC India servers. Not only that, even its DR sites are located in the STT GDC India data centre in Bengaluru.

 

Given the sensitivity of the banking sector, the data centres are completely in consonance with RBI guidelines, adhering to the conditions that have been set by the banking ombudsman.

 

According to Sankaran G, Deputy General Manager, CUB, “The partnership with STT GDC India has enabled us to focus more on the business side and not worry about the technological aspects. We are now able to scale up according to the business needs, and not have to bother about tech challenges.”

 

Customer Benefits

 

Thanks to its sharp focus on business and productivity, CUB has been able to grow consistently even when some of its peers have failed and shut down. CUB is now looking to diversify geographically. Since 1995, CUB has started expanding beyond South India. It has opened branches in different parts of India like Mumbai, New Delhi and Punjab. “STT GDC India’s geographic spread helps us to diversify and grow our business. The world class infrastructure aids us in business growth,” stated Sankaran G, Deputy General Manager, CUB. In addition, CUB has drawn the following benefits:

 

  • STT GDC India enables CUB to run its services and reach new markets with continuous data backup.
  • Better focus on managing operational complexities and innovation instead of spending time in mundane tasks, such as setting up a data centre, recruiting, managing and DR.
  • Meeting stringent compliance regulations of banking sectors in terms of technology usage.
  • Ability to work with multiple software partners like Wipro and TCS, with the hardware, based in STT GDC India.