The banking industry is increasingly relying on the latest technology to ensure financial products and services are safer amidst rising nefarious online activities, keep branches and ATM networks functioning properly, and enhance the efficiency of their overall operations to boost profitability.

With the popularity of smartphones, computers and the advent of more reliable, cheaper internet services, more customers prefer to do their banking transactions online, including deposits and withdrawals, money transfer, paying bills, etc. Doing banking transactions online or via phone is not only convenient, it is also faster.

Given this trend, a growing number of banks in the Philippines are offering online and phone banking. There are now 25 banks with mobile banking services, 18 with phone banking, and 42 with internet banking. Moreover, 15 banks are now providing mobile financial services through mobile phones, while 28 are electronic money issuers.

Globe Telecom, through its enterprise information and communications (ICT) technology arm Globe Business, is cognizant of the rising needs of the banking industry for innovative technology and has introduced Software Defined-Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), which enhances the ability of lenders to cope with the fast-changing digital landscape.

Aside from powering online and phone banking services, SD-WAN also helps the industry have enhanced visibility of branch applications and ATM networks, keeping them safer and connected to the main network without disruptions and delays as these could mean financial losses not only for the banks but also for their customers.

“Connectivity and the use of applications are the lifeblood of every bank and other businesses today,” says Peter Maquera, Globe Senior Vice President for Enterprise Group. “If network connectivity and applications supporting banking transactions such as treasury, trade transactions, CASA updates and check clearing are down, business operations could move slower or worse, grind to a halt. This will result in significant losses that will hurt the economy and damage the reputation of our financial industry.”

“Powering banking operations to make transactions faster, safer, and more reliable will be beneficial to businesses and employees resulting in better efficiencies and higher productivity,” Maquera adds.

With SD-WAN, banks can utilize any available bandwidth in a branch—a mix of broadband and Multi Protocol Label Switching or MPLS—thus ensuring a more reliable, secure, and faster connectivity not only in the banks’ headquarters, but also in its branches, ATM networks and other remote locations.

“The unique traffic tunnel creates connectivity even on multiple physical WAN links. Traffic can be managed and routed using all available bandwidth on multiple links,” says Maquera. “But should a link fail, the remaining paths keep the application supporting different bank transactions up and the bank operations running.”

Moreover, SD-WAN allows for application prioritization to allocate the required bandwidth. Banks can now choose how to expand their network capacity either using broadband or MPLS to accommodate all its application needs such as the broadband heavy videoconferencing or VoIP or latency sensitive Core Banking Systems. This will translate into higher utilization of existing connectivity and translate into bigger savings moving forward.

Currently, three leading banks are undergoing trial and integration testing with several other banks lined up for customer trial.  

Ask your Globe Business Account Manager or visit Globe SD-WAN.