PrivatBank Protects Business, Safeguards Customer Access to Banking Services at Time of Unrest by Migrating to AWS
PrivatBank Aims for Business as Usual in Time of War, Protects Ukrainian People’s Access to Banking Services by Migrating to AWS
Ukraine’s largest retail bank serving 40 percent of the population, PrivatBank was in a race against time to secure its business and its infrastructure as Russian troops advanced. With support from Amazon Web Services (AWS), the state-owned bank migrated all its critical applications to the cloud in just 2 months, minimizing business disruption and helping to ensure citizens had access to vital banking services.
Decisive Action to Secure Services
Failing to support more than 20 million customers in a time of crisis wasn’t something that Mariusz K Kaczmarek, vice president of IT and banking operations at PrivatBank, could entertain. The leading retail bank in Ukraine looked on as the war with Russia got under way, and knew it had to act. Fast.
“With Russian troops entering the country, we needed to make sure we protected our people and our employees,” says Kaczmarek. “We also had to ensure our services were available to clients—that ATMs were working properly, there was enough cash in the system, and online services were operational.”
Focusing on the bank’s critical infrastructure was key. With two on-premises data centers, Kaczmarek and his team were all-too aware that if the bank’s hardware was jeopardized, services to clients would be too. They decided to migrate to AWS to secure the availability of its core banking systems in the cloud.
A Fast Migration Outmaneuvers the Threat
“After getting the go-head from the regulator—the National Bank of Ukraine—we started the migration process, with AWS supporting us in moving what we had on-premises to the cloud,” says Kaczmarek.
The PrivatBank and AWS teams moved all the bank’s applications and services in just 2 months. This involved 4 petabytes of client data and 270 applications across 3,500 servers based in Ukraine. “Working with the team at AWS, we completed one of the fastest migrations ever,” says Kaczmarek. “In that short period, we were able to preserve and protect our business.”
Confidence in the Cloud
The migration, Kaczmarek says, is notable not just for its speed, but also for the positive outcomes for the business as well as the people of Ukraine that depend on its services. In the face of advancing Russian troops, the bank managed to act swiftly and protect operations while helping ensure its customers never lost access to financial services at this time of conflict and uncertainty.
“Our clients are happy, the bank’s owners are happy, and shareholders are happy,” says Kaczmarek. “It’s a great success story.” And now that core banking functionality isn’t reliant on physical servers and data centers, the bank is confident that it can maintain vital services to customers and keep its business operational, no matter what.
“Working with the team at AWS, we completed one of the fastest migrations ever. In that short period, we were able to preserve and protect our business.”
Mariusz K Kaczmarek, Vice President of IT and Banking Operations, PrivatBank
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