De Volksbank Successfully Migrates to the Cloud Using the AWS CAF

De Volksbank serves over three million customers as the parent company of four bank brands: SNS, ASN Bank, RegioBank, and BLG Wonen. In 2022, de Volksbank started using AWS CAF to follow best practices. The bank works with Deloitte, an AWS Partner, for training and governance and with Schuberg Philis, an AWS Partner, to build and maintain its landing zone. “AWS is a strategic cloud provider for de Volksbank,” says Sebastiaan Kalshoven, chief technology officer at de Volksbank. “Using AWS, we can focus on modernizing our IT landscape and growing our engineering culture.”

The bank has been on a multi-year cloud journey. “AWS CAF helped us gain scope and traction,” says Terry Akkers, head of cloud at de Volksbank. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we began to take different approaches to support our cloud journey. However, this didn’t gain traction until we started using the AWS CAF. Now, it is the main pillar of our cloud transformation.”

In 1 year, the company went from running a handful of accounts and 30 workloads on AWS to 380 accounts and over 120 workloads. De Volksbank also uses AWS for artificial intelligence, disaster recovery, data analytics, and to power its omnichannel retail. In addition, the company can scale and experiment with technology without lengthy procurement.

De Volksbank can deploy front-end applications 30–40 percent faster on AWS. With automatic scaling, the bank can also handle the load during peak hours better, increasing uptime by 20 percent while keeping costs the same. On the company’s app and retail sites, customers now benefit from response times that are 2–3 times faster.

“One of our biggest workloads on AWS categorizes customers’ spending history, and it’s lightning fast,” says Akkers. “We also forecast future spending so that they can take control of their finances. Even with hundreds of transactions, a customer can push a button and immediately see where their money is going, in what category they are spending, and what their future transactions might be.” The bank also benefits from the availability of this data to better understand customer personas, screen transactions for fraudulent behavior, and comply with anti-financial crime regulations.

De Volksbank meets compliance regulations by following best practices, and it fortifies security using services such as AWS Security Hub for automating checks and centralizing alerts. It plans to continue implementing advancements from AWS, including sovereign landing zones in Europe to help meet data sovereignty requirements.

De Volksbank wants to continue streamlining its people and processes using AWS CAF, including enhancing its onboarding and training. It also plans to use Amazon Connect—a contact center powered by artificial intelligence—at its customer service centers. “When we work alongside AWS, the end result is better,” says Akkers. “The bank is supported every step of the way and has learned from other AWS customers.”

“That is what makes a good collaboration: working together and achieving mutual goals”, says Kalshoven.