GSB connects partners to services with Red Hat Integration

Thailand’s state-owned Government Savings Bank (GSB) has a mission to reduce poverty and inequality. To deliver innovative digital services to customers from its in-house teams and third-party partners, GSB sought to adopt a modern integration approach for open banking. Using Red Hat Integration running on Red Hat OpenShift, the bank has gained flexible, modular infrastructure to onboard new partners and deliver engaging customer experiences faster. In addition, adopting enterprise open source technology, as well as agile and DevOps approaches has helped GSB attract new developer talent.

Benefits: 

• Reduced time to market for new features and services
• Improved service availability with modular architecture
• Enhanced talent attraction

Financial service providers are adopting open banking to deliver new, more accessible services to customers. Government Savings Bank (GSB), a state-owned Thai bank with a mission to reduce poverty and inequality, is focusing on building a large open banking ecosystem to help its customers— including young people, students, and blue-collar workers—more easily manage their finances. GSB’s partners include convenience stores, mobile phones networks, life insurance companies, and at-the-counter payment services.

“GSB faces the same challenges as other banks: adapting to an increasingly digital world and staying competitive by offering convenient experiences for customers,” said Boonson Jenchaimahakoon, First Senior Executive Vice President, Information Technology Group, Government Savings Bank.

However, GBS’s legacy digital application platform lacked the scalability and flexibility to support an increasing volume of partner integrations, leading to risk of downtime or time-consuming rebuilding or redeployment. GSB decided to replace its existing technology with a modern integration solution built on responsive microservices and application programming interfaces (APIs).

After researching potential solutions with a focus on open source technology, GSB decided to replace its existing platform with Red Hat Integration, running on Red Hat OpenShift. Red Hat Integration is a set of agile integration and messaging products that provide API connectivity and management, real-time messaging, and more to support API-centric business services.

“We specifically wanted to migrate from proprietary to open source software, because open source offers a high level of security with more contributors reviewing the code. It also provides more flexibility in vendor selection and upgrade cadence,” said Sarawut Nanakorn, Senior Executive Vice President, Digital Banking Group, Government Savings Bank.

Included in Red Hat Integration, Red Hat 3scale API Management lets organizations share, distribute, and monetize their APIs, protected by comprehensive security and access control. 3scale API Management handles the APIs that connect the bank’s mobile app, MyMo, and Sale and Service Unit on Mobile (SUMO) in-branch tablet devices to its core banking services. It also manages the bank’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) system. Also part of Red Hat Integration, Red Hat Fuse is a distributed, universal integration platform that connects everything from legacy systems and existing applications to APIs, partner networks, and more. These solutions run on Red Hat OpenShift, an enterprise Kubernetes container platform optimal for agile, microservices-based development across environments.

Reduced service time to market with easier partner integration

A more efficient development approach focused on agile and DevOps has helped GSB deliver new digital features and services to customers faster. As part of this new work approach, the bank has standardized its data formats and integrations with Red Hat’s technology to simplify collaboration between teams and with third-party partners. 3scale API Management lets GSB manage partners’ access to necessary data and other resources.

“In this market, it’s become impossible to expand past a certain point by yourself. You need partners that specialize in the services demanded by your customers,” said Nanakorn. “With an open banking approach supported by Red Hat Integration and 3scale API Management, we have made the onboarding experience easier for our partners. As a result, we can create and deliver the features our customers want faster.”

Improved availability with modular IT architecture

With modular, microservices-based infrastructure running on Red Hat’s container platform, GSB can maintain, scale, or modify existing services without affecting other production workloads. If applications or workloads need to be reconfigured or redeployed, only the specific microservice is affected. As a result, downtime needed to complete upgrades or fix any issues—as well as the risk of unexpected outages to customer-facing services—is minimal.

Enhanced talent attraction

By adopting a modern development approach that uses innovative enterprise open source technology, GSB is now positioned to attract skilled talent.

“With the local support from Red Hat Consulting, we have established a talented in-house development team that works with Red Hat’s flexible, modern technology to solve our business challenges,” said Nanakorn. “In particular, we have been able to easily engage younger developers who want to work with containers, microservices, and other new technology.”

After its initial success with its new IT architecture and Red Hat technology, GSB is focused on creating additional APIs to connect with new partners, support new business models, and attract new talent. The bank is also working on migrating all of its legacy integrations to Red Hat Integration.

“We want to continue delivering a fresh, modern banking experience to our customers,” said Jenchaimahakoon. “Red Hat Integration is critical to delivering that experience and responding quickly to market demands. We are confident that we are prepared for whatever business needs and challenges the future brings.