Mahesh Sahakari Bank Ltd., Pune

Founded in 1972, Mahesh Sahakari Bank Ltd., Pune (MSB, Pune) is one of the top 100 urban cooperative banks in India based on total deposits.

The need

When executives at MSB, Pune sought to expand the bank’s reach four years ago, they knew that customer convenience would be fundamental to the institution’s growth. At the time, each branch used a separate banking system to manage customer data. It meant that consumers could only deposit or withdraw funds at the branch where they opened their accounts. Moving to an “anywhere-anytime” banking model required a high-performance core banking system that could support transactions 24×7.

The solution

MSB, Pune worked with IBM Business Partner, Infrasoft Technologies Limited (InfrasoftTech), to implement its OMNIEnterprise core banking solution on IBM DB2® database software. IBM DB2, running on an IBM System x® server, was selected over Oracle Database due to lower licensing costs, exceptional technical support, and numerous user references. Several other cooperative banks in India had implemented core banking systems on DB2 and IBM servers and spoke positively about the benefits to their operations.

With the new system in place, MSB, Pune executives began work to launch its Any Branch Banking (ABB) service so customers could perform transactions at any of the organization’s branches across Pune and Mumbai. To successfully deliver this service, they had to confirm that the system would be available 24x7 with minimum failover time.

Working with the IBM India Software Lab (ISL) Services and Solutions team, the bank implemented the DB2 high availability disaster recovery (HADR) data replication feature. This capability has helped the bank deliver close to 100 percent availability over the past four years to address its around-the-clock service requirements.

In the event of a software or hardware failure on the primary system or if IT staff need to perform system updates, DB2 automatically rolls over to the standby system. Because MSB, Pune shares a data center with several other Indian cooperative banks, it could use an installed IBM System x server as its failover system, providing a cost-effective approach to meeting its disaster recovery needs.

With the DB2 HADR feature, MSB, Pune successfully launched its ABB service. The service was a huge convenience for consumers and enabled the bank to accelerate its expansion. In less than two years, the bank’s customer base increased by more than 50 percent.

Additionally, by upgrading to the latest version of DB2 at the time, the bank realized a 40 – 50 percent performance improvement. DBA productivity also increased by 40 percent thanks to the self-tuning memory management and autonomic maintenance features. This time savings has enabled the IT team to focus on the bank’s expansion efforts instead of ongoing maintenance.

The benefit

• Improves customer convenience to help support a 50 percent growth in customer base
• Provides near real-time access to information with close to 100 percent availability over four years
• Increases performance by 40 – 50 percent and DBA productivity by 40 percent with DB2 upgrade

To learn more about IBM DB2, and IBM Systems and Technology, please contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following websites: ibm.com/db2 or ibm.com/systems