Running a multi-channel platform in the cloud

Commerzbank, a leading German bank, has set ambitious customer-centricity, digitalization, sustainability and profitability goals in its “Strategy 2024”. A concerted shift towards the cloud forms a key part of its strategy to be a sustainable, innovative and future-oriented bank.

Commerzbank’s journey to the cloud, with Accenture’s support, offers an opportunity to drive enterprise-wide innovation, with benefits for customers and the environment. The migration of the Commerzbank multi-channel platform to the Azure public cloud is an important milestone in the bank’s cloud roadmap. The program encompassed the migration to the cloud of its private customer portal, its corporate customer portal and its portal for branch advisors.

The multi-channel environment is one of the most critical and complex banking applications within Commerzbank, with connections to some 300 third-party systems in the bank’s IT environment and no room for compromise on quality, security and reliability. The platform was not initially designed to run in the cloud, adding complexity to the implementation.

Commerzbank is one of the first major banks in Europe to bring its online portals to the Azure public cloud. As its strategic technology partner, Accenture worked closely with the bank to create and implement a cloud roadmap that would mitigate migration risks and ensure success. Refactoring the application to run flawlessly in the cloud was a critical success factor in the program.

With up to 60,000 online sessions running in parallel on the system, the bank needed to carry out the migration in a way that would minimize the impact on its customers and sustain production stability.

This was achieved by implementing smart monitoring and efficient functional and non-functional testing, and by introducing new software versions in slow roll-outs to small end-customer populations.

Commerzbank completed the migration of the portals to the cloud, positioning it with new technological possibilities. This public cloud solution will not only lead to cost advantages and efficiency gains, but also contribute to the viability of the bank’s multi-channel platforms. It improves the customer experience and enables gains in productivity, agility and scalability.

The multi-channel platform runs in Azure public cloud data centers across the European Union and thus guarantees optimum availability, reliability, production stability and data protection.

The application comprises more than 3 million lines of code, connects to some 300 third-party systems, and handles around 60,000 parallel user sessions during peak times. The Accenture 360° Value Reporting Experience enables Commerzbank to benchmark outcomes from the cloud migration program against a range of quantified targets that cover financial performance; customer and employee experiences; sustainability; talent, inclusion and diversity; and organization and infrastructure.