SGB-Bank: Building better connections for cooperative banks with data
About SGB-Bank
SGB-Bank is the associating bank for SGB Group, the largest group of cooperative banks in Poland, with more than 1.5 million customers.
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About Accenture and OChK
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SGB-Bank built a data warehouse with BigQuery that has helped reduce infrastructure costs, improve productivity, and provide a foundation for future technological innovation.
Google Cloud results
- Provides a centralized, single platform that will connect 176 banks in the group for improved data sharing
- Improves productivity by reducing data load times from hours to minutes with BigQuery and Dataflow
- Empowers developers to innovate with cutting edge tools and ease of use
Reduces data infrastructure costs by around 50%
Every community needs capital investment, but not every community needs it in the same way. By giving their customers a voice in how they are run, cooperative banks can fulfill the traditional roles of a bank and respond to the unique needs of the local community.
Poland's SGB Group is the country's largest cooperative banking association, comprising 176 banks serving more than 1.5 million customers. "Our banks are focused on supporting and developing the businesses in their towns and villages," says Błażej Mika, Vice President of the Board, SGB-Bank SA, which works for and in cooperation with the wider group. "SGB-Bank effectively acts as a service provider for the banks in the group, and we saw an opportunity to improve those services with technology."
SGB had traditionally used a third-party on-premises technology infrastructure, but as the group grew larger and more complex, it was clear that this would be unsustainable in the future. As the service provider for the group, SGB-Bank embarked on a strategy of digital transformation. The first step was a data warehouse built with Google Cloud.
The process of digital transformation and moving to a cloud-based infrastructure is a long and complex one for any organization. And it is even more difficult for a financial institution like SGB, due to the sensitivity of its data and strict regulatory requirements. While SGB evaluated a number of cloud solutions, Google Cloud was the only provider that could keep the bank's data in Poland and satisfy some of the most stringent requirements.
"Our on-premises infrastructure was becoming more expensive, more complex, and harder to maintain," says Mika. "Moving to Google Cloud was not only the right choice for us in terms of technology and cost, but it also made data security and regulatory compliance much simpler to deal with."
"Our on-premises infrastructure was becoming more expensive, more complex, and harder to maintain. Moving to Google Cloud was not only the right choice for us in terms of technology and cost, but it also made data security and regulatory compliance much simpler to deal with."
—Błażej Mika, Vice President of the Board, SGB-Bank SAReimagining banking data in the cloud
When SGB began its cloud journey, the first step was an obvious choice. "We began with a data warehouse, because that was the component most in need of modernization," explains Mika.
As SGB had grown larger and acquired more data, it faced not only the expense of adding and maintaining servers, but also integrating all the data from the hundreds of banks in the group. This proved challenging, as they did not all use the same system or collect data in the same way. "The platform was not flexible in the way we wanted it to be," says Mika. "We wanted a data warehouse in the cloud that would scale much more effectively than an on-premises solution and give us the flexibility to develop more tools with that data."
While many banks had begun to work with cloud technology, SGB was one of the first Polish banks to put its data warehouse in the cloud. To make sure that the process was a smooth one, the bank worked with Google Cloud partner Accenture to design the data warehouse architecture, implement and deploy the solution.
As the project got underway, SGB also employed OChK, another Google Cloud partner, to help build and configure the Google Cloud environment, and provide guidance on data security issues such as encryption.
The new data platform is powered by BigQuery, which scales with ease, and can also handle the complexity of SGB's datastreams. "BigQuery is the heart of our new data warehouse," says Mika. "It scales easily, and for the first time, we can collect all the data we need and store it in one platform."
In addition, SGB uses Dataflow for its Extract, Transform and Load processing tasks, Cloud Storage and the open-source tool Airflow to orchestrate the data pipelines.
"BigQuery is the heart of our new data warehouse. It scales easily and for the first time, we can collect all the data we need and store it in one platform."
—Błażej Mika, Vice President of the Board, SGB-Bank SAMore powerful, more efficient, more enjoyable to use
In August 2022, SGB-Bank's data warehouse went live, with the first tranche of data successfully and securely migrated to Google Cloud. While SGB is still in the process of building out the full solution, the early signs are looking very promising. Loading data into the warehouse takes just a few minutes compared to a few hours with the previous solution, meaning that developers are now far more productive.
When the data warehouse is fully built, SGB expects to save around 50% of its annual infrastructure costs, freeing up resources for the bank to work on new products and features. Throughout the process, SGB-Bank has worked very closely with its partners and Google Cloud to demonstrate the compliance and security of the platform to the Polish financial authorities.
For Mika, however, the impact on SGB's IT team has been just as profound: "The data warehouse we have built with Google Cloud is more powerful, more efficient, and more secure than what we had before," he says. "But just as importantly, our developers are thrilled to be working with easy-to-manage, cutting edge technology. It will also help us to recruit top-tier talent."
"The data warehouse we have built with Google Cloud is more powerful, more efficient, and more secure than what we had before. But just as importantly, our developers are thrilled to be working with easy-to-manage, cutting edge technology. It will also help us to recruit top-tier talent."
—Błażej Mika, Vice President of the Board, SGB-Bank SAA foundation for innovation
SGB-Bank's data solution is remarkable because it has been designed not only for the associating bank, but also for the group's 176 cooperative banks to adopt. Once the first data warehouse at SGB-Bank SA is complete, the group will start rolling it out to the other banks. When all the banks of SGB Group are able to share a single, unified data platform, they will operate more efficiently and effectively for their customers.
This will also be the foundation for the next phase in SGB's technology strategy. SGB-Bank is looking to capitalize on the new insights it will unearth with BigQuery by hiring a dedicated data analysis team. Further into the future, these insights will inform and help shape new products for customers such as more responsive mobile banking tools.
"The impact from Google Cloud has been very positive so far, and we want to continue that," says Mika. "Now that we have shown the group what we can achieve in the cloud, I'm very excited for what comes next."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About SGB-Bank
SGB-Bank is the associating bank for SGB Group, the largest group of cooperative banks in Poland, with more than 1.5 million customers.
About Accenture and OChK
About Accenture
Accenture helps companies use the cloud in areas such as application modernization, data analytics and AI.
About OChK
OChK helps develop cloud strategies to address an organization's goals and challenges.