Driving innovation and security with a flexible architecture.

When your business is built around a cloud platform, a highly secure and extensible infrastructure is critical. For online banks, which handle large amounts of private and confidential data, this couldn’t be more true.

Customers trust and expect that their sensitive information will be safe. That’s why Melbourne-based Judo Bank focused on elevating the security of its new lending platform when partnering with Itoc. 

Judo Bank’s goal was to change small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending in Australia. By taking an existing practice – processing loan applications – and making it considerably more efficient, the company wanted to:

• Create a highly efficient online loan origination process that enabled strong relationship-building with customers
  
  
• Allow relationship managers to access customer details instantly, while ensuring the security of financial data
  
  
• Deliver an infrastructure that’s unlike the traditional on-premises model – with no IT ownership

At the heart of Judo Bank’s requirements was a need for a more secure and flexible environment. This would help their team make the entire loan workflow more efficient. 

“We were looking to avoid the overhead of owning and managing an on-premises solution. The architecture had to allow us to change our solutions and adopt new ones without affecting our operations.”

 Graham Dickens, Chief Technology Officer

After assessing cloud services from leading vendors, Judo Bank chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivered by Itoc. 

Amazon’s active investment in virtual desktops and serverless computing – together with Itoc’s quick turnaround on a proof of concept – were key factors in their decision. 

Together, Itoc and Judo Bank worked to: 

• Automate core services, such as Elastic Compute Cloud and Elastic Load Balancing – to allow the team to focus on other high-value areas of Judo Bank’s infrastructure
• Develop scripting integrations using CloudFormation for Amazon’s API Gateway and set up serverless computing services with third-parties
• Implement Identity and Access Management to securely control access to resources, alongside Relational Database Service to store data on customers and their applications
• Use Elastic Block Store, Simple Storage Service and Glacier for block-level storage, backups and archiving
• Provide relationship manager access through managed desktop WorkSpaces for control over loan origination

Being a specialist in this industry, Itoc’s solution also aligned with AWS security and financial services best practices, while also adhering to PCI-DSS and APRA guidelines.   

By partnering with Itoc, Judo Bank has been able to grow rapidly and minimise capital expenditure, while maximising flexibility. This has meant:

• Stronger security and privacy, with strict identity and access management
  
  
• Improving infrastructure reliability, with 99.99% uptime
  
  
• Cost savings in IT infrastructure and developing in-house IT skills
  
  
• Achieving the goal of processing loans within five days

While executing a project of this scale can take up to 12 months, Itoc was able to deliver Judo Bank’s environment in just 90 days.

"We’re highly satisfied with the reliability of AWS. As Australia’s leading online-only bank, it gives us a lot of confidence. Thanks to Itoc, we’re able to continue expanding, with a flexible and cost-efficient IT infrastructure that can counter ever-changing security threats."

Graham Dickens, Chief Technology Officer

Case study available on AWS. 

Put security first and protect your data in the cloud. Talk to the specialists at Itoc.