FinTech Magazine August 2019 | Page 86

GARANTI BANK INTERNATIONAL
86

“ When you ’ re doing a digital transformation project , it ’ s just something that you cannot change overnight ”

— Alex Hurkmans , Chief Digital Officer , GarantiBank
“ We realised we needed to focus on our IT capabilities first . But ultimately , we had to transform the whole organisation and adopt a more digital way of working .” Through its latest strategy , GarantiBank has worked diligently to focus on where it , as a financial service provider , can add real value . Company leadership quickly realised that overseeing IT infrastructure wasn ’ t a core activity and could be better managed by an external specialist . Therefore , GarantiBank forged a partnership with Belgium-based company Cegeka . “ We wanted to make use of existing services in the market and add our own value on top of that ,” observes Hurkmans .
A notable milestone in the company ’ s digital transformation has been its shift towards a hybrid cloud environment . Cegeka helped the Dutch bank set up this infrastructure , drawing upon the capabilities of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure . “ We decided to opt for a cloud-first strategy and we were one of the first banks that were really making full use of the public cloud for bank processes and client databases ,” recalls Chief Operating Officer Marco
AUGUST 2019