In 
City Union Bank (CUB) Ltd is one of the leading scheduled commercial banks in the private sector with a significant presence across pan India. The bank’s segments include Treasury, Corporate Banking, Retail Banking and other banking operations.
“The partnership with STT GDC India has enabled us to focus more on the business side and not worry about the technological aspects. We are now able to scale up according to the business needs, and not have to bother about tech challenges." - Sankaran G
CUB offers Personal Banking, Corporate Banking and Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Banking Services. Its online banking services include utility bill payments, mobile banking, online shopping, railway ticket booking, etc. The bank offers a plethora of digital services like CUB Mobile Banking-mBank Plus, Mobile Passbook (mPassbook), Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for funds transfer across the banks and digital signature authentication for corporates as second-factor authentication.
The bank operates Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and Bulk Note Acceptors (BNAs) in approximately 1,800 locations, including over 760 off-site ATMs. It has installed check acceptor KIOSKs and self passbook printing KIOSKs. It offers CUB mobile wallet, which is a mobile-based software application and caters to customer utility services through mobile phone.
CUB’s technological leadership can be gauged from the fact that it was India’s first bank to introduce on-site humanoid (robot) in November 2016. Dubbed as Lakshmi, the robot is designed to assist customers with banking operation queries. CUB is the first bank in India to introduce multi lingual voice bot through its All-in-One mobile app.
Customer Challenge
CUB is one of the oldest private banks in Southern India. It started its operations in 1904. With a bulk of its business based in Tamil Nadu, as more than two-thirds of its branches are in the state; the bank’s performance is also intricately linked with the macroeconomic conditions. Over the years, the bank has seen numerous business cycles, yet it has managed to grow consistently due to its well-managed business model. One of the reasons for this consistent growth has been CUB’s relentless pursuit of business productivity. With a bulk of its clientele comprising micro, small and medium enterprises; the bank realised that every rupee saved was equivalent to every rupee earned. This business philosophy was applied to all of its banking operations, including the deployment of technology.
As part of its diversification strategy, CUB has introduced a plethora of products and services for the benefits of its customers. It has partnered with numerous companies like LIC and CBW Bank, to provide various facilities like insurance products and e-remittances. To cater to this bouquet of services, CUB required avant-garde technological solutions that were not only scalable but also easy to deploy. Not to forget, it had to be economical as well. To resolve this business challenge, CUB decided to opt for outsourcing strategically and decided to centralise its processes for business excellence. It worked with different partners for network maintenance and hosting of its data centres.
Over the years, as the banking operations grew, CUB’s spread of outsourcing map also grew. With multiple data centres in different cities, CUB was looking for a single service provider that could provide multiple-city presence as well as robust infrastructure. The bank wished to consolidate its function with one resilient vendor who can deliver robust infrastructure for ease of use and cost validation.
STT GDC India Solution
In 2013, CUB decided to consolidate its technology operations with STT GDC India. The bank used state-of-the-art STT GDC India data centres in Chennai and Bengaluru to access reliable and secure infrastructure to host critical applications. STT GDC India provides infrastructure provisioning along with necessary power and cooling to run the data centre, helping CUB to focus on its core business, namely banking operations.
As STT GDC India is carrier-neutral, CUB can access the services through multiple network providers, thereby bringing in business resilience. The success of this partnership can be gauged from the fact that CUB has migrated its entire workload on STT GDC India servers. Not only that, even its DR sites are located in the STT GDC India data centre.
Given the sensitivity of the banking sector, the data centres are completely in consonance with RBI guidelines, adhering to the conditions that have been set by the banking regulator.
According to Sankaran G, Deputy General Manager, CUB, “The partnership with STT GDC India has enabled us to focus more on the business side and not worry about the technological aspects relating to hosting of servers, storages, network and security devices. We are now able to scale up according to the business needs, and not have to bother about tech challenges.”
Customer Benefits
Thanks to its sharp focus on business and productivity, CUB has been able to grow consistently even when some of its peers have failed significantly. CUB is now looking to diversify geographically & has branches in different parts of India. “STT GDC India’s geographic spread helps us to diversify and grow our business. The world-class infrastructure aids us in business growth,” states Sankaran G, Deputy General Manager, CUB.
In addition, CUB has drawn the following benefits:
- STT GDC India enables CUB to run its services and reach new markets with continuous data backup.
- Better focus on managing operational complexities and innovation instead of spending time in mundane tasks, such as setting up a data centre, recruiting, managing and DR.
- Meeting stringent compliance regulations of banking sectors in terms of technology usage.
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Ability to work with multiple software partners like Wipro and TCS, with the hardware, based in STT
GDC India.
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