KBTG’s Brilliant Basics Are Not Basic at All
Thailand is well accustomed to K PLUS’ reliability, especially recently in comparison to our industry peers. It has become well known that KBank delivers one of the most stable banking systems with the least incidents despite having the most users, more transactions, and the highest volume, resulting in around 20,000 transactions per second. How are we able to do this?
KBTG is responsible for operating K PLUS and we take pride in our foundational core banking system, or the basics behind our services. But our brilliant basics are actually not basic at all. Creating a secure financial and banking system that carries 33% of national transactions takes high-caliber knowledge, skills and management — this is led by the core banking team.
This article is a summary of a roundtable with four executives to help us understand more about what goes on behind daily transactions and why customers are able to trust us in matters from small to large.
Great Foundation is Required for Stability
At the end of the day, our goal is to create a sustainable system. This is why every single step we take, we want to make sure it is the correct one. KBTG is sustainable across performance levels, regional adaptation, and future technological advancements coming our way. What we are doing now was maintained well through the web 2.0 days, and we are making sure that this level of security will be translated into web 3.0 needs as well.
KBTG Month-End Avengers Team
Predictably, K PLUS transactions always peak during the end of the month and continue on to the few first days of the next. We come prepared for this by uniting our leaders and working teams from various departments including infrastructure, technology, server, networks and others in the war room. Usually divided into operations, incident, and monitoring teams, they are prepared to guard applications from any mishaps that might come up. We call them the Avengers team.
War Room Operations
Imagine the team sitting in the monitor room. It’s the lottery announcement day and we know the amount of transactions will peak above average. Once the clock hits 15:00, every pair of eyes is set on the dashboard as transactions skyrocket, hoping hard that everything will flow smoothly. Someone catches a glitch, they bounce in their chair, swivel to the nearest device and take immediate action. The case has to be closed as soon as possible to prevent any bigger disruptions. This is just one example of a war room action. From payroll to the launch of Kubix’s first ICO project, war rooms are called for. It’s a very demanding job, but we know that our work is meaningful.
The Digital Banking Industry in Thailand (and Beyond)
Every bank is always developing their system to better serve customers, especially in digital banking nowadays. But believe it or not, the IT banking industry is not as competitive as you may think, for we are all working toward a common goal to support the country. We’ve adapted through COVID-19 which significantly changed customer behaviors in that they no longer use physical money. This greatly increases the number of transactions in more ways than ever.
The best way to solve the problem is to prevent it. We familiarize ourselves with the system as much as possible in order to navigate them with speed and accuracy. KBTG’s lessons can be applied in so many ways, whether in disaster recovery or crisis management, we plan out scenarios and rehearse them every quarter. The technology is forward-moving, so the management must also follow.
E2E Re-Architecture Techniques
Our teams conduct monthly checks on the system’s capability to see how much further it can go. Our strategy is to identify and solve blockages very early on with a combination of techniques.
Vertical scaling is like fixing traffic jams by expanding the road, one of the simplest solutions but not always the most efficient. Then there is horizontal scaling, which is like creating a new road, this also affects many parts of the working process. You can imagine many actions happening, even in just one account, before they are all combined back together and presented to users.
We have almost no control over external transaction amounts, such as when marketing campaigns will be launched or how much will be spent on holidays. For example, when foundations receive donations, a flood of transactions suddenly hits our system. This is where veracity and volume control comes in, grouping and filtering transactions while monitoring them consistently.
In the automation process, AI is brought in to better regulate actions. We realize that digital platforms are highly sensitive, customers will check in real time if money has left or entered accounts instantly. The system is programmed so that this is reflected as realistically as possible, creating security for users.
KInfra Transformation
Digital transformation has become a buzzword. As a bank, we have become digital a long time back, but the question now is how do we keep transforming. We do this by implementing a transformation mindset and a high performance culture among the workforce. We approached this with an internal focus, making the things that make us KBTG better.
For example with KInfra, we destroyed silos and replaced them with cross functional teams, to expand career paths and widen the scope of knowledge for our team members. We transformed into an end-to-end service by filling in all the gaps, and anticipating future gaps to fill them in beforehand. We set up preventive measures and boosted AIOps to support work from everywhere, emphasized with a hybrid multi cloud server and two data centers. Transformation is never-ending, it is only complete when we wake up transforming every day.
ONE Step Ahead Forever
The idea behind transformations is simple: we cannot continue with our old ways in an ever-changing environment and expect to be the best. At KBTG, we are always adapting. We embrace an open architecture to optimize flow and avoid single points of failures. We study occurring incidents and problems just as much as solutions. Automation first design is prioritized to ensure the highest quality reaction.
ONE KBTG is our secret weapon, the company culture is ‘all for one’ toward one goal which is to empower customers and partners with convenience and security in everything they do. We’ve adopted a ‘regional since day 1’ mindset. Our core banking in Vietnam is designed to support a population of 100 million people, and will be adapted to serve the 260 million people in Indonesia. We’re expecting to reach 100 billion transactions per year on a regional level. It is much more efficient to adjust a product to an environment than to create a new one. This is what gives us the edge. We are transforming into a seamless regional team to become the top technology organization in southeast asia.
Want to read more stories like this? Or catch up with the latest trends in the technology world? Be sure to check out our website for more at www.kbtg.tech
