RBL Bank reduced operational risk and costs by deploying MySQL Enterprise Edition for applications supporting its core banking environment.
Introduction & Background
RBL Bank is one of India’s leading private sector banks, offering specialized services in corporate banking, commercial banking, branch and business banking, retail assets, and treasury and financial markets operations. It currently services nearly 15 million customers through an expanding network of over 600 branches, 1,200 business correspondent branches and nearly 400 ATMs spread across 28 Indian states and Union Territories.
Founded in 1943 as a cooperative bank, RBL Bank transformed into a private bank in 2011, whereupon it began its digital transformation journey.
RBL Bank is listed on both the NSE and BSE (RBLBANK), and recently reached a major milestone of achieving one trillion Indian rupees (13.5 billion USD) in deposits.
Business Challenges & Goals
RBL Bank has traditionally relied on Oracle and MySQL databases to support its wide range of banking products. While its core banking system runs on Oracle, peripheral and supporting applications were deployed on MySQL Community Edition.
In order to reduce the risk of cyberattacks and comply with regulatory standards set by the Reserve Bank of India—which frequently conducts extensive audits—RBL Bank needed to bolster the security framework of the databases underpinning its auxiliary applications.
The bank also encountered inefficiencies in its backup workflows due to the lack of compatibility between MySQL Community and its preferred backup tools. Manual intervention was required to ensure adequate backup space and to maintain database performance during the backup procedure, which increased operational burdens on the database team.
RBL Bank frequently faced performance bottlenecks and integration complexities that hindered transaction processing efficiency, negatively impacting the customer experience. With millions of customers relying on RBL Bank for seamless banking services, optimizing its database systems became imperative.
Compounding these challenges was the limited support available for MySQL Community Edition, which resulted in prolonged resolution times for technical issues and delayed application of critical security patches.
Business Results & Metrics
RBL Bank enhanced the security, efficiency, and reliability of several critical banking applications by transitioning from MySQL Community to MySQL Enterprise Edition, resulting in full regulatory compliance, streamlined backup processes, and accelerated transaction processing times.
The bank significantly strengthened its security posture by leveraging MySQL Enterprise features such as Transparent Data Encryption (TDE) and Masking and De-identification. Seamless MySQL Enterprise integration with Oracle Audit Vault and Database Firewall (AVDF) further bolstered RBL Bank’s cyber-defenses. These comprehensive security measures enabled the bank to meet all regulatory guidelines, and safeguarded customer data against potential breaches and phishing scams.
Furthermore, the rapid implementation of MySQL Enterprise and its robust security topology allowed the bank to successfully meet its deadline for passing cyber-security information technology examination (CSITE) audits conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), thereby averting costly financial penalties.
RBL Bank revolutionized its approach to disaster recovery (DR) with MySQL Enterprise, eliminating its previous reluctance to conduct drills due to limitations with MySQL Community Edition. RBL Bank’s IT team now performs regular DR drills seamlessly with a simple switchover, bolstering confidence in the bank’s ability to maintain operational continuity, and ensuring preparedness for any eventuality without experiencing downtimes.
With MySQL Enterprise Edition, RBL Bank achieved noticeable improvements in the performance of applications supporting critical banking products. Furthermore, the bank has not experienced a single critical incident in any application since deployment, previously a common occurrence.
RBL Bank greatly improved its backup processes by seamlessly integrating native MySQL Enterprise backup technology with the bank’s third-party backup tool. The bank now performs full, incremental, differential, and log backups with zero impact on database performance and without manual intervention, saving the equivalent of one full-time employee’s workload per day previously spent on backup monitoring.
By migrating critical applications such as Know Your Customer (KYC), document management systems, and the bank’s proprietary account aggregator service to MySQL Enterprise Edition, RBL Bank eliminated duplication, facilitated seamless data exchange between systems, and achieved faster customer onboarding and transaction processing times.
With dedicated MySQL Support channels and proactive response mechanisms, RBL Bank gained rapid resolution of issues and immediate access to the latest security patches, ensuring uninterrupted operations and fostering confidence in the platform’s reliability.
“When we were using MySQL Community Edition, resolving technical problems felt like a game of waiting and watching, where the solution could take longer than a month to appear on a community post. However, with MySQL Enterprise Support, I know that dedicated experts get to work the moment I raise a query, and I have clear channels for escalation if necessary. This level of support is far superior to other enterprise databases we work with, and is a significant advantage for us,” commented Sajesh Rajagopal.
Why MySQL Enterprise Edition?
RBL Bank’s decision to select MySQL Enterprise Edition over other suppliers was driven by its comprehensive set of advanced features, management tools, and robust technical support to achieve the highest levels of security, reliability, and efficiency.
“MySQL Enterprise reduces the risk, cost, and complexity in deploying and managing the peripheral applications which support our core banking platform. Our strategy moving forward is to leverage MySQL Enterprise Edition as our database of choice,” Sajesh Rajagopal said.
Implementation Partner
For the implementation of its MySQL Enterprise Edition platform, RBL Bank chose MySQL Partner Crayon due to its certified technical expertise, customer-first approach, and broad range of best-practice based services.
Next Steps
RBL Bank is poised to advance its My SQL Enterprise database infrastructure to meet the dynamic demands of the banking industry and its evolving operational requirements. The bank’s roadmap for this year includes expanding its MySQL Enterprise footprint and deploying a high availability architecture across all databases hosting critical applications, aimed at further enhancing reliability and minimizing downtime.