Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Application Platform on HP Blade Center systems were selected to avoid vendor lock-in, reduce costs and provide the scalability to adapt to continued business growth.

Banka Koper, the sixth largest Slovenian bank based on revenue, maintains 52 branches in Slovenia and 830 employees across the country. It serves more than 150,000 consumer and business customers, and offers a wide range of banking services and products for households, small entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized enterprises, large companies and institutions. Approximately 87 percent of all of the bank's transactions are conducted via online banking. For corporate customers, nearly 90 percent of transactions occur online.

To continue its established history as a technology innovator in the Slovenian market, Banka Koper launched the Banka IN online banking solution to increase loyalty and reduce risks for its banking customers. In selecting the technology with which to build the online solution, the bank looked for secure, reliable, high-performance technology. It also needed a solution that could integrate chip and pin technology and authentication within the Banka IN platform.

Initially, the in-house Banka Koper IT staff selected a proprietary platform for Banka IN development. After one year, the team was unsatisfied with the slow pace of development, high costs, inflexibility and poor documentation associated with the previous solution. The team decided to look for an alternative, and selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Application Platform for the solutions' performance, reliability and support benefits. After 20 months of development, Banka Koper launched its Banka IN platform on an open source stack combining the Red Hat and JBoss solutions on virtualized HP Blade Center systems. The Banka IN project consists of an online banking solution, CRM and an electronic signature system for all distribution channelson channels.

"Red Hat's open source platform is the right solution for Banka Koper. It is in line with our business strategy to become independent of any technology platform, allows us to develop our own solutions, and stay at the forefront of technology innovation," said Mojca Plahuta, director of Information Technology Division at Banka Koper.

With the combination of Red Hat and JBoss enterprise solutions, Banka Koper has experienced reduced costs, flexibility and scalability. It delivered its online banking solution quickly and reliably to customers, and Banka IN was established as the first comprehensive online banking service in Slovenia.

"Cost savings are definitely evident with our new Red Hat-based solutions," said Plahuta. "This is just the beginning of our success story. We've gained a lot of knowledge in the process of deploying Red Hat solutions and this knowledge represents an important asset to our bank. It will also reduce training times in the future and allow us to do more with our technology resources."

Banka Koper aims to secure 25,000 new customers over the next three years through Banka IN, and plans to move additional services online to increase its cost savings and innovation.