Canara Bank recently went live with its core banking solution, provided by IBM, across 3,057 locations. IBM will also provide end-to-end support to the bank over the next seven years.

Canara Bank had selected IBM in August 2005 to implement a centralised banking solution constituting a suite of 14 satellite applications centered around the core banking solution. As part of the engagement, IBM was responsible for designing, building, deployment, and support of the centralized core banking solution as well as that for the satellite applications. IBM also helped the bank setting up and managing the data center and disaster recovery infrastructure, establishing the local area network in over 1,000 branches, monitoring the wide area network of the bank, and managing business continuity services to be able to seamlessly switch from the data center to disaster recovery mode.

“When it comes to technology adoption, Canara Bank has been the front runner in adopting technology among the public sector banks in India. We are pleased to have a dedicated team of IBM experts at Canara Bank, who helped us make informed decisions about the future of our IT environment. Customer-led product and services development, adaptation and innovation are the guiding principles for us. Keeping this in mind, we chose IBM to deliver a complete core banking solution on account of their dedication to the success of the clients and their ability to support the bank’s business growth. The value proposition of IBM’s overall solution was unmatched,” said the Canara Bank spokesperson.

The solution covers 45 million customers across India. The entire solution has been implemented and integrated by the IBM Global Business Services team leveraging their banking industry and complex systems integration experiences. The solution is powered by the latest IBM POWER7, System x and Storage Technology and managed by a team of experts from IBM Global Business Services and Global Technology Services using Tivoli suite of products. This infrastructure today enables 4 million business transactions every day supporting over 2,000 ATMs and 25,000 concurrent users on the system.

“Canara Bank India recognized the need to build a robust, dynamic solution to address their current and future expansion plans. Canara Bank is a perfect example of IBM's commitment to help organizations build streamlined, dynamic application and infrastructures that allow them to become more resilient, better positioned for growth and participate in building a smarter planet”, said Sriram Rajan, Vice President, General Business, IBM India and South Asia.