IT Services for a Bank: How COMINBANK’s IT Infrastructure Became Fault-Tolerant

Despite the war, missile attacks and other challenges, COMINBANK works reliably. The financial institution’s network stability stems from the coordinated work of its many branches, IT department, as well as from the trustworthiness of its IT partners’ services. GigaTrans telecom operator is one of such COMINBANK partners.

COMINBANK is a Ukrainian bank that has been providing services for corporate clients and private persons for over 30 years. It has 60 branches all over Ukraine and keeps on scaling up. The bank’s infrastructure is in compliance with ITIL requirements and international standards.

In 2022, COMINBANK ranked among the TOP-20 most profitable banks, and in 2023, was featured on the list of 30 banks with the highest regulatory capital adequacy.

Key tasks and challenges of banking IT infrastructure

Ukrainian banks are getting increasingly tech-driven, and telecommunications services play a crucial role in this process. For COMINBANK, it is essential to ensure the reliable operation of branches, the client-bank system, online payments, POS terminals, the corporate website, telephony and other services.

To guarantee the fault-tolerant operation of all bank components, one needs steady internet connectivity for all branches, protection against DDoS attacks and stable functioning of dark fiber. A single emergency pause in any banking service may lead to serious consequences. For instance, if there is no connection in a branch, the bank cannot provide services like card transactions or other operations there — resulting in both financial and reputational losses. Moreover, the National Bank of Ukraine may impose penalties on the financial institution.

COMINBANK takes a comprehensive approach to ensure that its clients can access banking services 24/7. One of the key factors behind this success is a reliable partnership with its IT contractor: since 2017, the bank has been cooperating with telecom operator GigaTrans.

New challenges and necessary transformation

In recent years, COMINBANK’s IT infrastructure has become more centralized. It is now highly scalable, as the bank’s team is focused on quickly launching new client-oriented services. To ensure fault-tolerance, the core of the banking system is now distributed across two data centers, and the network speed has increased from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps — that is, tenfold. Moreover, a third data center has been added to the IT infrastructure, operating in a standby mode.

‘Despite the war, our bank is actively expanding its network and geographic outreach. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the branch network has grown by 47%. Over 20 new branches have opened in the past year and a half. So the IT infrastructure is scaling accordingly,’ says Maksym Didusenko, Head of IT Infrastructure Department at COMINBANK. ‘In such conditions, it’s crucial to rely on a trusted telecom partner, which GigaTrans stands for now’.

Implementation results

Thanks to GigaTrans services, the bank’s team ensures such objectives: 24/7 data security and protection, no downtime, easy infrastructure scalability and effortless configuration of data transmission channels for branches, the NBU and other partners. All of this ensures the uninterrupted operation of IT infrastructure and services for clients.

The bank highlights not only the advantages of GigaTrans services, but also the service quality:

• 24/7 support;
• prompt reaction;
• early notification about technical maintenance.

‘Last winter, missile attacks on the energy system became a major force majeure across the country. It’s no secret that lots of internet networks were also damaged. We can now confidently state that together with GigaTrans, we went through those ‘dark times’ without turbulence. In particular, the use of PON technologies allowed us to remain independent of electricity supply, which is extremely important during blackouts and power outages,’ says Maksym Didusenko. ‘I personally have had positive experience working with GigaTrans on projects of various complexity. We are grateful that together we’ve built a reliable telecom environment for COMINBANK, where all processes run smoothly and reliably’.