NCINGA worked with DFCC Bank, Sri Lanka’s pioneering development bank, to modernise its IT infrastructure. Fragmented, outdated systems resulted in inefficiencies that hindered the bank's mission of fueling national economic growth. DFCC Bank completely transformed its banking infrastructure to gain over 60% efficiency gains, stronger security, and the operational agility and resilience needed to accelerate its own ambitions and those of the nation.
Industry: Banking
Location: APAC

DFCC Bank has a seven-decade-long presence in Sri Lanka, powering industries, innovators, SMEs, and infrastructure. The bank was established in 1955 as the country’s first development bank and listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange in 1956. In 2015, DFCC Bank amalgamated with its subsidiary DFCC Vardhana Bank to form a fully licensed commercial bank offering a complete spectrum of retail, SME, corporate and development finance services. Today, DFCC Bank provides financing for long-term growth projects, offers digital banking services (including DFCC OneApp and Lanka Money Transfer), operates 133 branches islandwide and provides access to over 5,500 ATMs through the LankaPay network. DFCC Bank has been a catalyst for many well-known Sri Lankan enterprises over the decades. The bank’s focus on sustainable growth merges commercial success with national development.

DFCC Bank has always had a bold vision to aid national development. As such, it understood the imperative to completely overhaul its existing banking infrastructure. This was not merely a technology modernisation; rather, it was a tactical transformation that reinforced its role as a driver of national development financing.

NCINGA has been a strategic partner throughout DFCC Bank’s digital transformation project, not just a technology vendor. Our commitment to co-create solutions with the bank’s teams, transfer knowledge, foster long-term capacity, and our extensive track record in Software-Defined Networking (SDN) naturally aligned with DFCC’s goals.

The constraints that prevented DFCC Bank’s capacity to serve future-oriented banking functions included:

• Operational delays: Essential daily Close of Business (COB) processes were slow and inefficient. The bank was unable to serve customers quickly and effectively, from large-scale infrastructure projects to individual entrepreneurs.
• Poor agility and scalability: Fragmented systems that depended on manual configurations did not provide the flexibility needed to launch new financial products or integrate with emerging fintech platforms.
• Security blind spots: Siloed systems without end-to-end visibility compromised the bank’s security posture. Security gaps, inconsistent policy enforcement, and regulatory compliance challenges were significant concerns for a bank of such systemic importance.
• Limited visibility and monitoring: The lack of a centralised monitoring platform and reliance on multiple hardware vendors created a fragmented environment, making it harder to monitor performance, detect anomalies, troubleshoot and respond to issues quickly.
• Integration gaps and unpredictability: Inconsistent configurations and poor integration between systems resulted in performance challenges and unexpected downtime.

DFCC wanted a solution that provided:

• Scalable infrastructure to accommodate new technologies as the bank grew.
• Platform resilience to recover quickly from any outage and power customer services with minimal problems.
• Re-architected infrastructure that made COB processes more efficient.
• A modernised security platform that enables proactive threat detection and responses, and enables regulatory compliance.
• Comprehensive operational visibility throughout its ecosystem.

Teams from NCINGA and DFCC Bank completely overhauled the bank’s technology infrastructure by implementing a Temenos core banking platform, creating a unified and secure network with Cisco, and improving operational resilience and the security posture through a Google Cloud Security solution.

This three-fold transformation included:

The eight-month transformation has made DFCC Bank more competitive through numerous benefits:

• Over 60% efficiency gains: Core banking processing time reduced from 14 hours to approximately 5 hours; month-end runs were also reduced from 18 hours to 5 hours.
• Automation and accuracy: Human error risks significantly reduced by automating core functions such as configurations, updates, and policy changes.
• Robust security and enhanced awareness: The upgraded security architecture provides a centralised view of the threat landscape, enabling predictive threat hunting, faster response times, and a consistent framework for compliance, which significantly reduces the bank’s overall cyber risk.
• Service agility and excellence: End-to-end visibility improved monitoring, troubleshooting, and performance, enabling the bank to reduce operational overhead and shorten incident resolution times.
• Complete operational transformation: A single vendor ecosystem with unified management tools (Catalyst Center, ISE) reduced operational complexity and overhead. Integration between components eliminated configuration drift, integration gaps, and significantly improved network reliability.
• Cost reductions: Automations, processing time reductions, stronger security frameworks, and other efficiency gains have lowered operational costs.

DFCC Bank’s new infrastructure has empowered the bank to drive national financing initiatives, foster entrepreneurship, and strengthen customer trust. The bank is also better prepared to introduce new services faster, integrate with cloud platforms, and incorporate emerging technologies. This success is a testament to the role played by modern, future-oriented technology, along with partnerships with the right technology vendor, in creating an ecosystem that drives relevance and competitiveness in a constantly evolving digital world.