In the midst of an ongoing transformation, Budapest-based OTP Bank, one of the largest independent financial service providers across Eastern Europe, was seeking a more open development platform. We guided the team’s platform migration as part of the modernization of its URBIS system and infrastructure, previously migrated from a mainframe years before. The best part: Users saw no impact in their day-to-day work and can continue using the tools and interfaces they're comfortable with.

OTP Bank is a major commercial bank serving 17.5 million customers across 12 Eastern European countries. Its core finance and accounting groups, operating via the Linux platform, required additional support. With its Unisys licenses already expired, the team needed help bridging between the old system (URBIS) and a new, comprehensive solution.

Legacy structures have their own set of challenges, with their own languages, databases and expenses to manage, and the team needed a more modern software development platform to continue supporting its 1,200 concurrent end users.

Identifying the need for more capacity to run its core services and a more modern infrastructure, OTP Bank tapped us to help with its migration efforts to the Microsoft ecosystem by converting its source code using our bespoke solution, LION.

We converted from a variety of source systems with a type of Automated Migration Technology, or AMT. It provides easy migration of legacy runtime and development environments to open IT architectures and development platforms, and consists of components relevant for a legacy migration project. For applications written in AMT LION, employees can connect either through a standard internet browser or AMT screens. This allows OTP Bank to keep its code, avoid a massive rewrite and maintain the knowledge of its development teams — all while being hosted on a modern architecture.

By moving off its original system and onto the Microsoft ecosystem, OTP Bank was able to avoid disruptions to its employees, who continue using their own tools. These now interact with the converted system via the URBIS Connector.

We helped the OTP Bank team:

• Move to a more open development platform without interruption and while retaining the knowledge of the existing team.
• Modernize its application code further in the future.
• Integrate other tools and systems into its primary business application.

The bank has secured its foundation for ongoing application modernization, including web services, which will now be possible as it continues expanding its system.

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