Cloud Migration and Modernization of a Mobile Banking Platform for Enhanced Scalability and Cost Efficiency

The client operates an on-premise mobile banking platform supporting a substantial number of active users, with high peak demands during certain periods, leading to oversized infrastructure and elevated maintenance costs. Additional challenges include managing multiple hardware environments (development, staging, UAT, preproduction, production), costly database licenses, and reliance on physical hardware which hampers agility and scalability.

A midsized retail or commercial bank with a large customer base and an on-premise mobile banking platform seeking to optimize infrastructure costs and improve high availability.

• Migrate the existing mobile banking platform to a cloud environment to enable scalable and high-availability infrastructure.
• Reduce total cost of ownership by utilizing cloud-native services, including switching from licensed database software to open-source or managed database solutions.
• Establish automated CI/CD pipelines for more reliable and efficient software release processes.
• Ensure secure, seamless integration with external payment and banking services.
• Achieve flexible resource management to handle user growth and seasonal usage peaks.
• Improve overall system reliability, security, and operational efficiency.

• Migration of backend services to a container orchestration platform (e.g., Kubernetes) for flexible deployment and management.
• Integration with cloud-native message queuing and pub/sub systems for asynchronous communication.
• Support for multiple payment types including interbank transfers, ecommerce payments, digital wallet integrations like Apple Pay / Google Pay, and 3D Secure transaction processing.
• Deployment of a scalable, managed database service with support for PostgreSQL to eliminate licensing costs and improve manageability.
• Automated, reliable CI/CD pipelines for continuous integration and delivery of updates.
• Multi-environment support including testing, staging, and production environments built within the cloud infrastructure.
• Secure ingress and egress traffic configurations, with external service integration and compliance with security standards.

• Payment gateways and card authorization services supporting 3D Secure.
• External financial messaging and notification systems (e.g., Pub/Sub or equivalent).
• Third-party services for identity verification and fraud detection.
• Secure external APIs for digital wallet and mobile payment services.

• Scalability to support a growing user base with capacity planning to handle peak loads.
• High availability with minimal downtime, especially for payment processing functionalities.
• Performance benchmarks such as response times within industry standards for banking applications.
• Security measures including encryption, secure traffic management, and compliance with financial regulations.
• Cost optimization through cloud-native managed services and resource autoscaling.
• Disaster recovery capabilities with automated backup and recovery procedures.

The migration project aims to provide the client with a highly scalable, reliable, and cost-efficient mobile banking platform. Expected outcomes include significant infrastructure cost reductions due to eliminating oversized hardware investments and licensing fees, improved system availability and performance, enhanced deployment efficiency through automation, and a flexible environment capable of supporting rapid growth and seasonal peaks. Overall, the project will result in increased customer satisfaction, reduced operational risks, and optimized IT expenditure.