Other Finalists : Punjab National Bank : BCP Automation Project

The need to provide uninterrupted services to customers exists in every

business, which is why most companies implement a busines continuity plan. Cost

of such a setup largely depends upon the level of uptime required. In case of

PNB, there was a need to provide uninterrupted servies to its customers across

all of its 5000+ branches. Even though the bank has implemented a centralized

CBS, the branches often faced disruption of services due to network

unavailability. Setting up multiple backup lines or a backup server at each

location would have been an extremely costly affair, which is why the bank

worked out an innovative way of handling the situation.

The business problem



Earlier, in case network connectivity was lost, PNB's many branches did not

have the latest fall back data. In fact they used to have previous day balance

files. Due to this, the branches could not service their customers until the

network connectivity was restored again

What was deployed



To overcome the above problems and challenges, project BCP Automation was

initiated by PNB with the objective to provide latest balance file (fall back

data) to an identified BCP PC in each branch.  The BCP PC acts as a server for

other PCs/Terminals and the data is automatically transmitted to it. Team PNB

developed a solution architecture keeping in mind the available IT-

infrastructure, IT-security & budgets which provide crucial BCP data to all the

branches of the bank at regular intervals. Also, to avoid any overhead cost,

existing infrastructure consisting of servers, network links, application

software were used.

Benefits after deploying



Uninterrupted customer service is provided even in the absence of network

connectivity which was their main focus. The latest balance, stop payments,

signatures were always available in the branch BCP PC. Not only this, a BCP

software which is developed by the in-house ITD allows to do cash  transactions.

Now with the help of 'Upload files' provided by BCP software, branches can

upload cash/ transfer transactions in the main CBS system. The entire project

has been implemented with available resources including existing software,

licenses, and hardware which is also the USP of this project.