Executive Summary

The South African Post Office (SAPO) recently approached Bula to implement an Oracle-based database technology platform to ensure the high-availability of Postbank’s banking applications. As a result, PostBank is able to provide high-standard customer services to its 3 million clients and also have capacity to deploy new financial services.

Postbank is a savings institution, which operates as a division of the SAPO. The government restructured Postbank to enable the management to create a commercially viable institution that caters for the financial needs of the so-called "unbanked" part of South Africa’s population, especially in the rural areas of the country.

As part of the restructuring process, Postbank decided to introduce an expanded product range such as insurance and other financial services through the wide network of the SAPO, which includes more than 1299 branches throughout the country.

From a technology point of view, SAPO realised that it had to upgrade its infrastructure to facilitate Postbank’s new objectives. This included consolidating platforms, as well as to upgrade their technology to eliminate capacity restrictions. “From a business perspective, we also wanted to improve services to our customers. Our systems have not been upgraded for a number of years and we were looking for a new banking system,” says Domingos Dias, General Manager of SAPO’s banking and retail business solutions.

SAPO looked at Bula to provide a backend solution to ensure high-availability of its infrastructure. “Bula has the expertise and product set to tailor solutions for clients. We are a certified reseller of Oracle Applications and Technology, from ERP, Supply Chain Management to CRM applications. Our understanding of SAPO’s business requirements, enabled us to design, deploy and implement a solution to enable non-stop availability of their banking services,” says Tsepa Ramoriting, Managing Director at Bula Solutions.

Client Situation

Postbank aims to provide banking facilities for the people of South Africa who previously had very limited access to financial services. The range of banking services is therefore user-friendly and affordable. “Our aim is to become the main provider of basic financial services in South Africa while fulfilling the needs of our clients," says Dias.

He continues that, “Our typical customer is not a ‘traditional bank’ customer. We operate at the low end of the market and also service the government. Our task is to continually improve services to the majority of the population and to reach new customers, whilst looking for avenues to cut costs.”

Prior to the implementation of the banking system, SAPO ran different operating systems and infrastructures. “We knew that as part of our drive to improve our customer services, we had to consolidate our systems, taking the growth of our client base in mind and also to provide scope for future development of new services,” says Dias.

Bula’s Solution

To fulfill its requirements, SAPO decided to implement iFlex’s FLEXCUBE, a modular banking solution, and approached Bula for the Oracle Real Application Clusters (Oracle RAC) to ensure high availability of its infrastructure. FLEXCUBE runs on the Oracle database technology platform at SAPO’s datacentre in Pretoria.

Ramoriting says, “The most important part of an infrastructure is the back-end, to ensure high-availability.” Oracle RAC allows an Oracle database to run any packaged or custom application unchanged across multiple connected, or "clustered," servers. The solution provides the highest levels of availability and the most flexible scalability. If a clustered server fails, Oracle RAC continues running on the remaining servers. Additionally, when more processing power is added, another server is simply added without taking users offline.”

With Oracle RAC, coordinating the use of large numbers of servers acting as one on an enterprise Grid, SAPO’s data centre has the ability to deliver the highest quality of service on low-cost, modular hardware.

Dias explains that transactions are conducted at SAPO’s branches in real-time. “Customers access banking systems via stores or any ATM in the country. Currently we have the 5th largest ATM network in the country. We also have more client accounts than any other bank in South Africa. High-availability of our services is therefore key,” says Dias.

Following the implementation of the project, Postbank is able to offer clients an extended range of savings and investment services. For example:

• Flexi Card - The Postbank Flexi Card, formerly known as the Telebank account, is a card-based transaction account. It can be used as a convenient medium to deposit and withdraw salaries and other payments. Postbank Flexi Card transactions are made over Post Office counter terminals and at over 7 200 ATMs of other banks
• Smart Save - Formerly known as the book-based savings account, it is increasingly trusted as a preferred way to save money for emergencies, to build up cash reserves or to keep money in safe custody while getting interest on the funds put aside. The minimum balance to open and maintain an account is R50. An estimated 1,8 million savers are banking with Postbank
• Mzansi Flexi Card Account – Postbank joined the national Mzansi initiative to provide low-cost banking, especially for the unbanked. Transactions can be made at Post Offices countrywide and at any Saswitch ATM's.  All you need to open a Postbank Mzansi Flexi Card Account is an ID book and an initial deposit of R10 or more 

Business Benefits

The solution was tested, deployed and implemented in just under 4 months. “Since the deployment, our customer satisfaction has increased. Additionally, the usage of online tools has increased by 30% and our transactions have nearly doubled in fourteen months. The solution is able to absorb high volume growth with little or no impact to the solution,” says Dias

The solution allows SAPO to:

• Scale up in terms of infrastructure usage without having to heavily invest in hardware should they acquire more customers
• Ensured of availability of their infrastructure, 24 x 7
• Implement subsequent technologies. For example, SAPO recently implemented Pastillion to run their financial applications.

Dias says that Bula was dedicated to provide very good service to SAPO, even at their own expense. “Once we started working with Bula, we realised that they are not only interested in building a short-term relationship. They walk the talk in that they have the ability to understand our business which forms a strong relationship for a long-term relationship.”