Loancos – Credit platform works securely in the Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud

Loancos – Credit platform works securely in the Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud.

Buying property usually comes hand in hand with a loan. To support financing providers like direct banks, mortgage companies, and insurers verify and allocate credit, the LOANCOS Group has developed its own credit platform. Banks get the details of home loans via permanent interfaces as complete accounting records for their ledger and demand is growing because the platform gives banks and insurance companies a competitive edge. LOANCOS-IT now operates in the Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud with Managed Services by Bechtle. The highly available, scalable, secure infrastructure platform complies with all supervisory guidelines.

Project details.

Services

Managed Services
Cloud

Industry

Financial / Insurance
Trade / Service

Company size

< 250 employees

Challenge.

The LOANCOS Group has been handling lending activities for banks, insurance providers, and financial investors since 1999. It’s a specialised service provider for property-secured financial products dealing with all loan processing for new and existing customers. Through associated intermediaries such as Interhyp, construction financing is handled through via a digital application process, checked against predetermined customer data, and ultimately disburses the loan. The platform arranges for the mostly automated collection of outstanding loans payments and manages the loan on the basis of service level agreements. Banks and insurers linked to the credit platform then receive the credit data for their ledger, notification and reporting structures and additional systems via standardised interfaces. This is convenient for the credit institutes and streamlines their structures as it dispenses with in-house development and the need to operate this kind of credit environment. Instead, the LOANCOS Group credit platform automates property credit business, makes it direct-banking ready and facilitates regulatory compliance making it very attractive for banks and insurers. LOANCOS calculates that, in the coming years, it is likely that more than half of German construction financing will be concluded via intermediary platforms, with it being involved in a high percentage itself, entailing the processing of sensitive data in line with strict regulatory and supervisory requirements.

We employ a vast and complex server landscape for our credit platform, and we need it to always work and above all, remain secure, which was going to become unmanageable with our internal resources. Moving to a private cloud, however, was and is closely tied to regulatory requirements, meaning we need to be able to create a report for the banking authorities at any time. Bechtle is our trusted partner for this, having all the necessary certifications and responding to our individual needs. Our specific requirements are always listened to and above all, the fast scalability and redundancy of the Bechtle infrastructure really helps us to implement new projects in a targeted and efficient way. Bechtle understands us SMEs which means we can now simply focus on further developing our platform.

Iván Reyes Rivero, Head of IT, LOANCOS GmbH

With these challenges facing their credit platform, LOANCOS was looking for a reliable and adept technology partner with the right provider solution. Its in-house IT needed to be able to focus on developing the platform and needed someone else to manage the highly available and scalable server. The situation demanded an external service provider certified to DIN ISAE-3402 and DIN ISO 27001 who would make sure that the regulatory requirements (BaFin und EBA) are complied with and also prepare and conduct audits.

Solution.

The experience required, the right financial expertise, and all necessary certifications were found in Bechtle, meaning that they were already well-versed in statutory regulations and requirements. The Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud was also the perfect fit for fail-safe platform operation. Bechtle hosts these solutions across several data centres on the basis of the VMware vCloud Director and operates some 100 LOANCOS servers as managed services. The virtual servers are mirrored and highly available. Modern and high-quality components from big brand vendors with the latest processors ensure reliable operation so that LOANCOS’ credit platform’s time-sensitive applications are never put at risk. Bechtle Financial Services provided a further consulting service in establishing a governance, risk and compliance (GRC) service on the LOANCOS platform partnering with the Institut für Regulation und Management (Institute for Regulation and Management, QIRM). This service is provisioned via Bechtle’s own ADOIT tool, based on the Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). The QIRM-developed reference model now employed by LOANCOS contains all relevant regulatory checklists, forms, and templates. meaning that Bechtle can hand over the right documentation for any use case at the push of a button. The system also automatically detects and sends notifications about missing documentation. Gaps in mandatory statutory documentation are also proactively detected and resolved.

Business benefits.

The Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud lets LOANCOS’ customers enter information and calculate their credit whenever they want. Together with Bechtle’s managed services, the platform provider saves time and money as its internal capacities have been drastically freed up. The highly available, scalable, and secure infrastructure platform offers all required operational services and complies with supervisory regulations. As soon as an inquiry from the supervisory authorities is received, Bechtle quickly puts together the required information. The Bechtle Virtual Private Cloud—together with the Bechtle Financial Services GRC service—fulfils all LOANCOS’ banking and insurance customers’ compliance requirements.