Company
Postbank, one of Germany’s largest and best-known financial services providers, has been synonymous with security and trust since 1909. With 18,000 employees, Postbank provides diversified services—including payment transactions, financing, and investments—to approximately 13 million private customers and 300,000 businesses. Based in Bonn, Postbank runs the most extensive branch network of any bank in Germany.
Challenge
Postbank operations involve massive amounts of customer and transaction data—200 terabytes of the data must be accessible within seconds to 6,000 employees. In 1998, the bank adopted SAP as its core banking application.
For several years after that, Postbank archived the data from SAP and other systems on a legacy platform. However, that platform delivered inadequate throughput and was reaching the end of its life. This was especially problematic because in addition to running its own operations Postbank aimed to launch an ancillary business providing archiving services to other financial institutions. To support business growth on all fronts, Postbank needed a scalable archiving solution that delivered security segregation and the ability to integrate with third-party repositories. Because business and regulatory climates are constantly changing, the solution also had to be flexible.
“We identified our crucial requirements,” said Gerold Blasig, Project Manager at Postbank’s Competence Center Channels, Services & Sales. “First, we needed a solution that could handle very high volumes of data that must be administered, archived, and researched. So, scalability was paramount. Second, our insourcing business needed to take data in from multiple sources and segregate them in different client systems for secure access rights. Finally, we needed a system that could adapt. For example, in 2003, when we were looking for a solution, no one could have known that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements were going into effect in May 2018. But we knew we needed to keep pace with change.”
SOLUTION
From a list of several dozen solution vendors, Postbank narrowed the field down to three contenders: the provider of its legacy system, Rocket Software, and another well-known company. The bank evaluated these vendors’ offerings against 150 weighted criteria and reviewed competing presentations. Rocket® Mobius came out on top.
A robust repository with a fully integrated Enterprise Content Management System, Mobius provides granular policy management, flexible content services, and near-infinite horizontal scaling. Postbank’s solution includes Mobius Total Content IntegratorTM, which enables search and access across disparate repositories.
“The selection team’s choice of Mobius over competing solutions was unanimous,” Blasig said. “Mobius is scalable, reliable, and it offers a structured way to accommodate change requests quickly, with high quality. That makes it adaptable to evolving business, and IT needs.”
Postbank implemented Mobius in 2006, Blasig said, and time has proven that it was the right decision. From the start, Mobius delivered the scalability to integrate data from Deutsche Bank’s and other banks’ legacy content management systems without costly migrations.
In 2016, the European Union Parliament approved a stringent new GDPR for granular and event-based retention and deletion. With enforcement scheduled to start in May 2018, many enterprises struggled to comply. Postbank moved forward by implementing SAP NetWeaver Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) for rules-based live and archived data management. Rocket built a Mobius adapter to communicate directly with ILM and gained SAP certification by satisfying WebDAV interface standards. As part of this enhanced solution, Mobius Records ManagerTM enabled federated electronic records management across systems—in place and their original formats—through an intuitive, web-based interface.
“For years, we have stayed in close contact with Rocket’s development and support departments and received an uncommonly high level of productive cooperation,” Blasig said. “Rocket is always willing to upgrade its solution in response to our emerging needs. It’s a win-win situation: We get our requirements implemented quickly while Rocket continuously modernizes Mobius to meet new market demands. We’re especially impressed with the advances in streamlined Application Programming Interfaces Rocket invests in to make its products better and better.”
USING ROCKET MOBIUS, POSTBANK:
• Archived 200 terabytes of critical business and customer data
• Delivered secure data access to 6,000 employees within seconds
• Accommodated 150 document and data types, many billions of documents, and SAP datasets
• Integrated third-party repositories and delivered security segregation
• Scaled for business growth and added up to 30 million documents per day
• Met changing regulatory compliance standards, including GDPR
Results
Today, Postbank archives 200 terabytes of critical business and customer data, including monetary transactions, account statements, account files, and reports from multiple banking activities independent of the originating application. This also includes billions of documents and SAP datasets and up to 30 million documents per day of 150 document and data types. Bank staff can access the data securely within seconds, not minutes supporting business efficiency and good customer service. If the bank ever needs to restore data for any reason, it can do so from the stored software packages in the archive. Meanwhile, Postbank’s ancillary business thrives with the ability to serve other financial institutions, and the bank stands ready to address emerging demands for digitalization and enhanced customer access to information.
“Postbank came to Rocket when we needed to replace an end-of-life archiving system for our SAP core banking system,” Blasig said. “Since then, our industry and IT needs have changed; Postbank has grown, expanded its services, merged with Deutsche Bank’s retail business, and faced new regulatory requirements. Through it all, Mobius has performed seamlessly. Moreover, Rocket has continuously extended the solution’s capabilities to keep them robust and adaptive. Mobius is not only a proven technology, but it also keeps pace with an evolving future.”
1. Accessibility: Mobius Total Content IntegratorTM enables search and access across disparate repositories.
2. Agility: With Mobius, Postbank built the agility to respond to the changing industry and IT needs, regulatory requirements, and customer demands.
3.Efficiency: Data can be accessed securely within seconds, supporting business efficiency and good customer service.
