Today, it is difficult to imagine business in Russia and around the world without the presence of technological innovations and digital processes. Customers are becoming more demanding of digital services, and within companies too, improvements in work processes need to keep up with the times. In this sense, banks and the entire fintech sphere have always been at the forefront. The bank can work either exclusively online, or conduct the majority of all processes digitally. Today we will talk about the four main digital solutions of Rossilhospbank (RSGB), assembled and supported by our specialists.

A brief background

Rossilhospbank is a state-owned bank founded more than 23 years ago. It is focused on the sector of the agro-industrial complex (APC) and rural areas. The implementation of advanced digital technologies and the support of digital and financial services for the population in villages and agricultural producers are among the missions of the RSHL. At the moment, more than 30,000 employees work at RSGB, the bank has more than 300,000 corporate clients and more than 10 million individual clients.

In 2015, the RSGB took a course to accelerate and strengthen digitalization processes, and since 2018, the task of import substitution has been added to the task of digital transformation. Starting in 2021, together with the Digital Ministry of the Russian Federation, a digital transformation strategy was developed, which determines the transition of the RSGB to domestic technologies in the period from 2021 to 2024. By 2024, the Bank needs to implement significant changes in numbers, and 2023 became the equator in the program: RSGB switches to import-substituted system software, an active transition in the field of iron and infrastructure solutions begins.

In 2023, the share of RSGB expenditures on the purchase of domestic software amounted to more than 80%, in 2024, according to forecasts, it will be at least 83%. For comparison, in 2021 this indicator was 63%, in 2022 – 76%. Also, in 2022, the purchase of domestic radio electronic products accounted for only 0.1%, i.e. minimal costs. By 2024, the Bank intends to make a jump to 71%. In 2023, RSGB will buy practically only domestic products.

Own developments

Own development of technological solutions in RSGB has existed since 2017. Own development for any bank is a conscious and correct choice that allows you to have competitive advantages. In 2022, RSGB acquired R-Style Softlab, which was a leader in the ABS (automated banking systems) market. The company now provides a wide range of digital products for the financial industry. RSHB and R-Style Softlab jointly develop several product lines for other banks.

Most of the RSGB projects are in the area of ​​business development and provide processes. The bank tries to invest in projects that have a financial payback model and a reasonable investment return horizon in the range of 3-5 years.

One Frontal Solution (SEF)

In 2017, the RSGB set a task to abandon multi-windowing on the computers of front-line employees. It’s no secret that now we have to compete in the regions for personnel, there is a lot of turnover in banking organizations. Until now, salaries have been equalized between the banking sector and retail, so organizations periodically exchange personnel.

In preparation for this regular exchange, the task was to develop a simple, intuitive interface, similar to solutions for online stores, where an employee adds goods to the cart, forming a product profile of the customer. After forming such a basket, the Bank employee clicks on the payment button, and the conditional buyer goes to the checkout. The platform includes the possibility of multiple horizontal scaling of services, which allows you to cope with increased loads, as well as the reuse of implemented business logic in any channel.

The gradual implementation of the project together with the R-Style Softlab team began in 2018. The implementation was phased, and by 2020 the replication of the first phase was completed. In 2021, a new functionality covering all lending steps was implemented. Currently, the system covers all the needs of the retail front office. One of the results of the introduction of the EDF is a multiple increase in the speed and throughput of operations, for example, opening accounts and deposits, primarily thanks to a convenient interface.

EDF is built on the basis of open source technologies. The system itself is registered in the registry of domestic software, and R-Style Softlab distributes it as a boxed solution.

The EFR functionality is implemented as a set of microservices. The main feature of the architecture is the separation of the integration and presentation layers and the functional part. The presentation layer is implemented for each channel depending on its individual characteristics, and the functional part is implemented only once. The functional part includes the system part (core, configuration, monitoring, etc.), business logic (implemented in a uniform way regardless of the process and channel) and channel logic (implemented to support the unique features of each channel).

Digital office of the employee (TCG)

The bank is not only customers, but also employees, for whose comfort RSGB has also set the task of unifying and improving work processes. As a result, the Employee’s Digital Office or CGZ appeared – a single workplace that combines key services: calendar, mail, messenger, voice channel and all kinds of services, including for communication with technical support. It is available on Android and iOS and is built using the Flutter cross-platform framework.

In 2020, the RSGB approved the design concept of the CGZ. A demo show of the solution was already held in March 2021, and it was put into operation in June. 2022 was marked by several achievements at once: the CGZ application became available to all employees throughout Russia, several new services were launched in June (virtual assistant, idea bank, voice calls), and the second wave of launches took place in November (intangible motivation program, digital bulletin board, digital bulletin board). The most important and sought-after element of the CGS at the moment is the corporate messenger. The system allows you to completely abandon the use of Telegram and WhatsApp, transferring communication to an internal secure channel.

Currently, the functionality of the Central Bank almost completely covers the needs of the Bank’s employees. In addition, it turned out to be very convenient to conduct surveys through the digital office. Previously, the post office and the corporate portal were used to conduct them. It was inconvenient for employees to go to additional links from the mail and log in to the site to conduct the survey. Now the survey comes directly to the device, and the employee receives a push notification, when passing which he can quickly answer the question. RSHB focused on creating a user friendly interface, and it achieved results. Feedback on surveys has increased several times.

From the rest of the results, it should be noted that administrative and overhead costs have decreased tenfold. Also, the speed of work of both the employees themselves and the services to ensure their work has increased significantly.

Software assembly, delivery and deployment pipeline (CI/CD)

In 2022, RSHB completed the use of its CI/CD pipeline. Work on the project lasted about three years. The problem turned out to be not to make it, but to prove to the competence centers and development blocks that they need, it is important and necessary to move to the conveyor. Most systems are difficult to accept such changes, but, realizing that behind this lies the only possible perspective for the development of the landscape, the specialists of the team stubbornly developed ways of implementation.

To ensure the processes of continuous integration and delivery, a set of pipelines is implemented in the pipeline, each of which describes the stages of the production process undergoing automation: development, testing, deployment on the required environments, interaction with other information systems. Each system component runs in OCI containers, based on the Kubernetes orchestration platform. Docker is used as the container runtime environment. Pipeline supports Java, Go, Python, .net (C#), Kotlin, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

At the moment, most of the existing systems have already entered the pipeline in one form or another. All new systems are immediately put into the CI/CD pipeline. During the transition, the speed of applying comparable changes significantly increases and the number of errors during implementation into production decreases.

Sanction screening

The Sanctions Screening project started in 2021. The system allows not to violate sanction restrictions and save clients’ money. It will store all payments in online mode without affecting the settlement processes in any way. That is, the speed of payments does not decrease, about 90-95% of them are processed automatically. The rest is manually sorted by employees.

Area of ​​control:

• incoming and outgoing customer payments;

• payments of respondent banks (transit payments);

• informational messages regarding documentary operations;

• Transport systems: SWIFT, SPFS, Telex, Payment system of the Bank of Russia.

Between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, more than $300 million of client money was saved from blocking. The system allows you to use calculations without fear of possible blocking. Screening works 24/7, fully integrated into the Bank’s settlement processes.