Banco Guayaquil sought to grow, enlarging its customer base by launching digital banking services that appeal to the increasingly demanding expectations of Ecuadorians. How could the bank achieve this, while keeping costs and complexity to a minimum, eliminating obsolete systems, and minimizing complexity?
Banking customers today expect innovative, on-the-go, digital services. To meet these requirements, banks need to offer around-the-clock service whilst at the same time developing applications that satisfy a wide range of customer needs.
Ecuadorian bank Banco Guayaquil sought to achieve just this, as Juan Luis Reca Montero, CIO, explains: “Our goal is to become the leading digital bank in Ecuador, offering the best online and mobile banking services. To do so, we need virtually limitless growth capacity and the ability to develop and launch new applications rapidly and easily, whilst ensuring that our services are always up and running.
“Our existing 13,000 applications were running on an aging, costly and cumbersome IBM mainframe system running an old and costly operating system which wasn’t completely stable and was reaching saturation. All of this was starting to be a major obstacle.”
Aiming to modernize its IT landscape, Banco Guayaquil looked for a way to boost scalability, support the delivery of new services, and slash fixed costs.
Juan Luis Reca – CIO
Banco Gauyaquil
Founded in 1923 under the name of Sociedad Anónima Banco Italiano, Banco Guayaquil is a banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Guayaquil, Ecuador
Banco Guayaquil reviewed offerings from several technology vendors before deciding in favor of Micro Focus. The bank ran proofs of concept for several solutions, which all demonstrated that the technologies under consideration were an excellent fit for its requirements.
Juan Carlos Bustamante, Systems Development Manager at Banco Guayaquil, explains: “Following the excellent outcomes of the proofs of concept, we selected Micro Focus Enterprise Server, Micro Focus Enterprise Developer, and Micro Focus Enterprise Analyzer.”
To help move business applications from the mainframe to Enterprise Server, Banco Guayaquil worked with Micro Focus Business Partner Maint, as Maria Del Carmen Gutierrez Saavedra, Project Manager at Banco Gauyaquil, remarks: “Micro Focus has no direct presence in Ecuador, so we chose to work with local partner Maint, which supported us each step of the way. The project was complicated, but Maint provided excellent assistance and the migration went smoothly.”
Banco Guayaquil moved its 13,000 banking applications from the mainframe to Micro Focus Enterprise Server running on x86 hardware. The new platform brings together past, current and future technologies, giving the bank the flexibility it needs to undertake new initiatives while preserving the value of previous technology investments.
Franz Zambrano – ARCHITECTURE AND INNOVATION MANAGER
Banco Guayaqui
Franz Zambrano, Architecture and Innovation Manager at Banco Guayaquil, states: “Micro Focus Enterprise Developer provides a modern IDE that support development of both older code like COBOL and newer Java or C# code. The solution enables our developers to work faster and in a more agile way, helping to modernize the mainframe without risk or disruption. The Micro Focus tool allows them to gain higher visibility into any potential issues, and to perform rigorous testing before going into production.”
Maria Del Carmen Gutierrez Saavedra adds: “Micro Focus Enterprise Analyzer was particularly important at the beginning of the project, helping us to understand the correlations, value and performance of our application portfolio. Our team leverages the tool to run impact analysis and planning activities, which in turn boosts control and productivity.”
By moving to Micro Focus, Banco Guayaquil now benefits from an open, nimble, and cost-efficient platform for its core banking systems.
Franz Zambrano remarks: “With the Micro Focus solution, we have doubled our monitoring and supervising capacity and slashed the time taken to run overnight batches – by approximately 25 percent.
“We have also halved our energy costs and datacenter footprint, and cut mainframe-related expenses by 80 percent.
“Additionally, we experienced zero failures during the migration process, so our end-customers were able to access and use our digital services without delays or downtimes. Well-designed proofs of concept were instrumental in this.”
“The virtually limitless scalability of Micro Focus Enterprise Server on x86 machines is another strong point for Banco Guayaquil as the company gears up for growth,” adds Richard Roman, IT Manager at Banco Guayaquil.
Juan Luis Reca Montero concludes: “At the beginning of the project, we made a promise to the management team: that we would achieve full ROI in five years. Judging by how everything has been going so far, we are confident that we can achieve this in just three years. Thanks to Micro Focus and Maint, we are well on our way to becoming Ecuador’s leading digital bank, leveraging open, modern, and cost-efficient IT systems.”
