Xalq Bank case study:
Digital transformation of its banking operations

Goals

  • To modernise the bank’s IT infrastructure and transform its card business, ensuring it can meet evolving business needs and increasing transaction volumes
  • To expand Xalq Bank’s product offering, with the ability to respond quickly to changing market conditions

Outcomes

  • Migrated to a new in-house back-office system with greater functionality
  • Significantly reduced time-to-market for launching innovative new services by automating several key banking operations
  • Improved interactions with third-party systems by automating data exchange
  • Optimisation of TCO due to the possibility of implementing developments independently

 

“This project has become a part of a large-scale process of modernising the bank’s IT infrastructure, which includes updating different systems and services. Due to its flexibility, functional features and architecture, TranzAxis has played a key role in the automation of our retail business,” said Ali Akhundov, CIO of Xalq Bank.

Overview

As one of the leading financial institutions in Azerbaijan, Xalq Bank’s mission is to provide customers with modern, convenient and beneficial financial services. However, the limitations of its incumbent payment landscape meant that Xalq Bank was struggling to keep up with the fast-changing needs of consumers and their appetite for digital financial services, so it decided to 
embark on a major project to modernise its card back-office system.

The bank chose to migrate its card infrastructure to TranzAxis, the open development payments platform from Compass Plus Technologies, as it fully met all Xalq Bank’s criteria, as well as providing the bank with the flexibility to develop new products and services quickly and ensuring seamless integration with third-party providers. With more than half of financial institutions operating in Azerbaijan already utilising Compass Plus solutions in different ways (including in-house and outsourcing), the software vendor’s strong reputation was one of the major criteria to make a decision. 

Objectives

With its incumbent system no longer able to meet its objectives, Xalq Bank knew it needed a complete infrastructure transformation in order to be able to maintain its leading position in the market, streamline costs, automate key business processes and improve the customer experience, in terms of offering new digital banking products.

The bank needed a system that was both reliable and efficient, could give them the ability to develop and customise financial services independently enabling them to react quickly to changing business and consumer demands, and ensure they could keep up with increasing transaction volumes. After researching the market, Xalq Bank decided to build its own back-office platform on TranzAxis from Compass Plus Technologies as it fully met all of their criteria and the long-term strategic goals of the bank.

Solution

Xalq Bank chose to base its infrastructure modernisation project on TranzAxis as it not only offered off-the-shelf functionality, but provided the flexibility and tools for the bank to develop and launch new products and services to market quickly. Based on TranzAxis, Xalq Bank deployed a fault-tolerant, full-featured back-office system to ensure the flexible management and configuration of its various existing banking services.

During the project, the bank automated the processing of payment card transactions, including the maintenance of customer data, management of charges, limits and other card data, business logic and accounting for various types of cards - including the full cycle of servicing credit cards. Interaction with third-party systems of both the bank and its partners was also a part of automation. For example, with all the transactions outsourced to the third-party processor, AzeriCard, Compass Plus Technologies had to ensure a smooth integration enabling Xalq Bank to automate and optimise interaction with the third-party processing and billing systems. 

Results

The TranzAxis project deployment was completed in 2021, resulting in the launch of an in-house back-office system built on a new platform and migration of all debit cards from the previous legacy systems. In early 2022, the bank deployed new credit card products based on TranzAxis. This has enabled Xalq Bank to:

  • digitally transform their business, enabling it to react quickly to changing market conditions in the Azerbaijan financial market
  • quickly develop and launch new products and services that meet customers’ needs
  • automate the processing of payment transactions, business logic and accounting for various types of cards, so that the bank is able to significantly shorten the time-to-market for new services and reduce the time for customisation
  • provide automated interaction with third-party systems of both the bank itself and its partners, thereby establishing cost-benefit relationships with third-party companies and ensuring quick data exchange
  • reduce dependence on the vendor and maximise the use of in-house resources to further develop the system and customise banking products, which has led to cost reduction 

“Thanks to the professional support of the Compass Plus Technologies team, we finished the launch of the main part of the project. We are confident that this is only the beginning of a long-term partnership, and the capabilities of the TranzAxis software platform will serve as the foundation for our business development for many years to come,” said Nazim Ibragimov, Project Manager and Board Member of Xalq Bank.

Click to download

Download