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IBM System z10 Upgrades RHB Banking Group's Data Center

August 29, 2008

RHB Banking Group, a financial products and services group in Malaysia, is adopting IBM System z10 mainframe to upgrade the enterprise data center of its Central Technology Unit.

 
The z10 deployment is part of RHB Banking Group’s recent transformation exercise that brought about its IT operations under a single umbrella of Central Technology Unit, which is responsible to deliver enhanced shared IT services to RHB.
 
With this upgrade, RHB Banking Group hopes to become a one-stop banking institution, offering more holistic financial services such as retail banking and wealth management, corporate and investment banking, Islamic banking and insurance, in the advent of the business and Information Technology (IT) transformation exercise.
 
According to RHB Banking Group, the mainframe system will enable RHB to consolidate and streamline their core banking systems and day-to-day operation of other businesses within the Group. The z10 mainframe project will also support critical processing capacity for the bank’s clients located in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand.
 
“We are proud to be the forerunner in having this system that, amongst other things, is highly scalable to cater for business growth, mergers and acquisitions,” said Michael J. Barrett, group managing director, RHB Banking Group. “The RHB Banking Group, in line with its aspiration to be a convenient one-stop financial institution, has continually explored all possibilities in integrating all its available products and services.”
 
The mainframe security is integral for banking operations to protect sensitive data such as credit card information and clients’ personal information from hackers.
 
“IBM System z10 offers security controls which are synonymous with the system as the only server on the planet that has achieved this level of certification for security and partitions from the United States government's highest level of security, Evaluation Assurance Level 5 (EAL5), via z/VM,” IBM said.
 
IBM System z10 helps clients dramatically increase data center efficiency by significantly improving performance and reducing power, cooling costs, and floor space requirements, creating a new enterprise data center model for the organization.
 
IBM System z10 mainframe, which was introduced early this year, contributed for a significant share of company’s revenue for the second quarter of this year. According to officials, z10 alone contributed for a 32 percent increase in revenue during the period. More than 4,000 applications are currently available on System z10 platform.
“RHB has proven its innovation stance as it leads the way in adopting the world most powerful computer, the IBM System z10 Enterprise Class, to meet the escalating needs of its clients locally and regionally,” said Ou Shian Waei, managing director, IBM Malaysia.
“Our relationship with RHB is one which we have built for more than a decade and we have seen the banking group grow and prosper and we are confident that they will reach their goals while keeping clients' needs at heart,” added Waei.
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Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for ContactCenterSolutions. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Michelle Robart



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