"Zeroing" of IT infrastructure: Why PSB refused all systems of the Sviaz-Bank at merge. Interview with CIO Sergey Pegasov

Sergey Pegasov: Consolidation took place successfully, though was carried out to enough short time for similar projects. I think that in the market there is not a lot of precedents of similar integration, considering that process was at the same time legal and technical.

We, of course, began to prepare for migration earlier as soon as the project started. Its active phase began fall of 2019, and we completed consolidation in May, 2020. Seamless transition of clients of the Sviaz-Bank to PSB became result of work. The Sviaz-Bank had two data processing centers – the main and reserve, these are about 650 servers. The total amount of information storage was near the 500th terabyte.

Clients individuals the Sviaz-Bank at that time had about one million. At consolidation in PSB their agreements, accounts, deposits migrated. After completion of integration clients could be registered independently in the remote servicing system (RBS) on the website of PSB. Having filled out the simple questionnaire, they got access both to the products from the Sviaz-Bank, and to new products of PSB. In fact change of bank details became the main change for clients.

Clients - legal entities were reconnected to the system of remote banking of PSB too. For this purpose to them was to address to any office PSB or the Sviaz-Bank enough and to sign documents on transition.

Sergey Pegasov: Diametrically, since the fact that the Sviaz-Bank had a monolithic platform the bank worked generally based on solutions of CFT and, as a rule, used vendor solutions.

PSB has vendor solutions, for example, the automated banking system New Athena and SAP for personnel management and administrative activity too. But we have also many systems of own development.

Historically so it developed that PSB independently is engaged in development of information platforms. Therefore all main business systems, all RBS systems, main system for work with natural persons "PSB Retail" are our products.

Taking into account such difference in architecture the decision was made that migration will take place on solutions of PSB. It was inexpedient to combine these two architecture within one bank. Of course, different options were discussed, but taking into account requirements for terms such decision was made.

It is necessary to tell that recently at consolidation of large banks other method of migration which is simpler in terms of information technologies is often used. In the majority of the last integration in the market quite so also became. I speak about a way when the attached bank remains on the systems, being connected to the main bank as separate branch or child structure, and then there is gradation of systems. But it long enough and costly as it is necessary to contain at the same time several IT infrastructures and IT structures until they completely merge. It also leads to additional costs because of conducting two businesses.

Sergey Pegasov: Yes, and we continue to go on this way. At the moment we have more than 700 developers, and expansion of a command is planned. At the same time we use also outsourcing on development. Now most large banks use these mechanisms as it is obvious that there is an informatization know-how – the acquired products, the specific created business models. And if they are implemented on vendor products, then it is easier to copy them. But we in a sense outstripped time because some banks just now create own powerful structures which will be engaged in development.

Sergey Pegasov: The systems of the Sviaz-Bank are transferred to the archive mode now. As consolidation happened relatively recently, now we transfer those systems which were in DPCs of the Sviaz-Bank, to capacities of PSB, and gradually we will refuse these platforms. But it were leased DPCs therefore there problems will not arise.

Sergey Pegasov: Koronakrizis, of course, did not help us. There are two aspects which could complicate a situation, but we managed to avoid them. The first is connected with the fact that migration took place during the quarantine, and the large volume of works had to be done remotely. For this purpose we organized secure secure access to many systems of bank, having harmoniously worked with Information Security Service and other divisions. It did not affect project deadlines, but entered additional labor costs.

Besides, because of crisis there were many new tasks, and it was necessary to distribute very carefully resources on projects. It was necessary to be engaged at the same time in the project of migration and to solve urgent and current IT questions that the bank could work and fulfill all requirements of regulators steadily. And we coped.

Sergey Pegasov: Yes, it is unconditional, the speech first of all about transfer of employees to remote work, but during a pandemic there were also certain requirements to the systemically important organizations and to execution of certain tasks from the Central Bank of Russia. It was necessary to solve quickly these unplanned problems, to select resources. Often the same people participated both in data transfer, and in new product development therefore it was necessary to work densely effectively to organize all process.

Sergey Pegasov: I consider that migration technology is a difficult procedure, but if everything is tested and is debugged, then it should work as the certain started mechanism, where the main thing – nothing on the run to change. Then everything will pass smoothly. And that to change on the run of nothing, it is necessary to be prepared in advance very well, having held many organizational and coordination events. The initial and most difficult stage of integration is a creation of a uniform team of representatives of two banks with their different processes, products and technologies.

And the second is, of course, deadlines. Technically migration was carried out in four days. Everything had to fulfill without failures as any malfunction would beat out us from the diagram. Huge data arrays which had to take the places allocated to them were transferred and it is correct to earn. A number of test migrations was for this purpose carried out, within each of which nuances which needed to be considered and finished came to light.

Sergey Pegasov: With colleagues from the Sviaz-Bank at us good working dialog returned to normal at once. We offered them the vacancies which are available for us at that time, told what are options for career in PSB. A part of employees of the Sviaz-Bank accepted our offer, and now they work in the joint division of IT of PSB. Data warehouses specialists, RBS systems specialists, mostly in a retail segment passed to us.

As many in the Sviaz-Bank worked with rather specific system of CFT which has the market of specialists, someone from them made the decision that he does not want to be retrained and change specialization. They found other options of career development. Taking into account deficit of specialists in IT market, I did not hear that someone had problems with employment.

As for the head of IT of the Sviaz-Bank Vladislav Bykov, he as my deputy headed one of the key directions of development of the systems of PSB. And I am the head of the joint service IT of bank.

Sergey Pegasov: I did not feel any essential difficulties. Taking into account that the Sviaz-Bank belonged to VEB, it was government institution, as well as PSB too, and at employees of the Sviaz-Bank understanding of mechanisms of work of such organization was initial. The difference would be if we attached any commercial bank. I can tell that integration into our corporate culture at the come employees took place smoothly and successfully.