Banks IT Day 2025

Defective servers

Viktor Kruglov, Director of the IT Support Department, ICD, considered measures for import substitution in the field of IT infrastructure and software in application to banks. He outlined the current problems of the company. For example, here it became necessary to check the quality of IT solutions.

Viktor Kruglov, Director of IT Support Department, ICD

The transition to domestic equipment led to the appearance in the bank of stands for preliminary running of equipment under load, long before its transfer to critical circuits. Another pressing need is to do something about the heterogeneity of the components. Now the development of its own monitoring systems for IT infrastructure and application solutions has become the "truth of life" even for medium and small organizations.

We have a difficult experience in replacing servers with domestic ones, since domestic production is characterized by a high percentage of factory defects, - complains Viktor Kruglov. - Therefore, a stand has been created in the bank, on which new servers are running. At this stage, 99.9% of all problems are identified. I would like to see similar rolling stands at the factories of manufacturers. This is especially important when it comes to servers for CII.

The long duration of projects also adds problems. The fact is that the level of development of equipment and functionality of products created in open source code changes unpredictably during the project. The functionality that was in the first versions may disappear altogether in subsequent releases. All this must be monitored.

According to the speaker, consistency is needed, because the resolution of conflicts between internal customers and performers leads to the need for direct contacts between internal customers and manufacturers. The last issue he called is PAC functionality. The use of hardware and software complexes imposes a number of restrictions on customers. For example, you should keep in mind the product development plan, its life cycle and know the area of ​ ​ responsibility that the vendor assumes.

Anton Semennikov, Director of Digital Development, Delobank, noted that the bank is focused on the SMB segment, spoke about the BaaS banking model, and then outlined the prospects for the development of the banking business for the period 2025-2028.

Anton Semennikov, Director of Digital Development, Delobank

Loans are now issued less and less, and banks earn more on commissions, and not on interest rates on loans. Accordingly, digitalization should develop the transactional business of banks. The priorities in development here are the fast payment system, the digital ruble, the introduction of artificial intelligence and open banking, when the API connects the bank with partners and their customers. Built-in finances also fall into focus.

A quick reaction to changes and the introduction of new financial products on their platforms allows businesses to provide customers with the most modern payment services, - Anton Semennikov is sure.

He noted that one of the main hypotheses of the company is that by offering customers the best technologies, you can significantly increase the turnover. And this hypothesis has already been confirmed in practice.

Further, the speaker spoke about BaaS, that is, a banking model based on open software interfaces, which is embedded in the IT infrastructure of the business.

This model includes:

• Limit management system
• Cash collection interval management system
• information security tools;
• payment processing;
• compliance with legislation (compliance);
• opening new accounts (both settlement and special accounts), closing old ones;
• real-time cash flow logic.

Digitalization will write off everything

Roman Prokhorov, Chairman of the Board, Financial Innovations Association, called the financial sector one of the leaders of digitalization and settled on regulation, state infrastructure projects (NSPK and PS Mir, SBP, universal QR code, digital ruble, biometrics, open APIs). He also paid attention to issues of financial technology security, such as technological sovereignty, an environment of trust in the remote provision of financial services, information exchange on attacks.

Roman Prokhorov, Chairman of the Board, Financial Innovations Association

The speaker named the following problems of digitalization. Firstly, there is a blur in the personal responsibility of the performers. They, roughly speaking, believe that "digitalization will write everything off." The cost of ensuring the proper level of "durakopornost" of systems is also increasing.

The speaker attributed the risk of not adopting "digitalization of morality" to the risks of digitalization, that is, delegating the right of mass decision-making to algorithms, which were previously the ethical choice of each individual person, when the individual is responsible for his choice. However, who will be responsible if the algorithm makes a decision about life or death?

From the point of view of the widespread use of the digital ruble, there is a high risk of activating fraudsters who will begin to name citizens, explaining that they urgently need to change rubles on deposits in digital rubles, warns Roman Prokhorov.

Fyodor Lezhnev, IT Director, Alfa Capital, spoke about the capabilities of the AI platform. This company has about a trillion rubles of assets under management, more than 2 million customers. It holds 19% of the mutual fund market.

Fedor Lezhnev, IT Director, Alfa Capital

We have been working on the AI platform for two years. The plans for this year are to make a profit from its use at the level of 120 million rubles, - said Fedor Lezhnev. - When introducing AI, it is important to remember: even the best AI tool must be built into the communication channels familiar to employees.

The platform has a souffler in text channels. Now processing within the first 20 seconds has increased from 72% to 89%. It also introduced quality control of conversations and categorization of calls, thanks to which the processing time of messages was reduced by 20%. Within the product, both the analysis of comments in surveys and responses to complaints are carried out. It turns out that 20% of requests are completely closed by AI.

If we talk about the direction of sales development, then the AI platform is used to analyze contacts with customers, and for IT specialists - to analyze code changes, assess the amount of work performed by an employee, and complexity. The speaker concluded that Alfa Capital is ready to share its experience and its AI solutions with the market.

Happiness is not in quantity

Ruslan Talipov, Head of the Center for Support of Means of Protection and Response, MTS Bank, presented an up-to-date look at monitoring, protection and security maturity.

Ruslan Talipov, Head of the Center for Support of Means of Protection and Response, MTS Bank

He listed information security agents. Antivirus goes like a basic guard. A DLP system is needed to prevent sensitive data leaks. The EDR solution monitors the activity of processes and user actions with the transfer of telemetry to a centralized analysis center.

However, Ruslan Talipov believes that the presence of information security agents may become redundant, leading to the fact that agents from different manufacturers can interfere with each other. Plus, each agent consumes CPU resources and takes up space. The simultaneous operation of multiple agents can slow down the system. There are also problems with the interface - the abundance of agents means many notifications, reboots and other inconveniences for the user.

The speaker identified the following levels of maturity of the information security process control system:

1. Basic: antivirus, no unified monitoring system.
2. Managed: EDR,, DLP MDM, partial application, SIEM setting policies.
3. Integrated: centralized monitoring (SIEM + SOAR), incident management processes (IT and business involvement).
4. Automated: XDR solution, Threat Hunting scripts, routine automation.
5. Optimized: Continuous Improvement culture, deep integration of information security practices and KPIs into the business.

The number of security agents should be optimal, the speaker is sure. - Happiness is not in the quantity, but in the quality and consistency of the work of information security agents.

Roman Trushkov, Director of the Department of Credit Analysis of Corporate Clients, Absolut Bank, assessed the impact of automation on the corporate lending process, which is implemented in the bank on the basis of a low-cost platform. He analyzed the labor intensity of the lending process depending on the degree of automation.

Roman Trushkov, Director of the Department of Credit Analysis of Corporate Clients, Absolut Bank

Lending includes work on such stages as data source, data entry, analysis, results execution. In the current configuration, a robot works with data sources in Absolute Bank. Data entry and analysis, registration of results takes place at the software level. The work in such a process is 0.25 conditional units of time, the number of errors and returns is 1.

Historically, a person used to work at all stages. Then time was spent - 2 conditional units. The number of errors and returns is 3 units, which is three times more than now. In the near future, the bank plans to exclude manual labor from corporate lending altogether with the automatic launch of the process.

Against the background of the projected decline in economic growth, a transition to a cold, meticulous calculation when introducing IT, an understanding of how the introduction of information technologies is being fought off, "emphasized Roman Trushkov.

The Speaker made several recommendations. You need to realize the inevitability of changes and try to overcome the resistance of employees right at the start. It is necessary to optimize the business processes themselves before the start of automation, create a good team and not try to optimize everything at once. It is important not to get bogged down in planning, to move gradually.

Such different agents

Andrey Ovchinnikov, Head of Innovation Development, National Settlement Depository, noted the transition to a product approach that implies the impact of product value for the client. Here we took this path: we combined the demo version and the MVP version, which made it possible to immediately demonstrate the value of the product to the client for whom this future product is intended.

Andrey Ovchinnikov, Head of Innovation Development, National Settlement Depository

The speaker outlined the competencies that IT departments should have when the customer comes here with an idea. Broad IT competencies are needed by the designer, analyst, database engineer, tester, developer. Applied experience includes relevant education, experience in fintech, interest in economics and finance, personal investment experience. Passion for the product is desirable, that is, "burning eyes" from ideas and focus on the client. Emotional intelligence, that is, the ability to interact with a business team, the desire to study new technologies, and sociability, will not hurt, as usual.

The developer still requires relevant education and experience, says Andrey Ovchinnikov. - Guys who have grown polymers or raised cattle all their lives are unlikely to be able to create financial products.

Optimization of development can be carried out due to maximum simplification of functionality without loss of quality. The development is taken to the outer cloud circuit (open data, limited access).

The experience that the company gained from the results is as follows. It is necessary to demonstrate to the MVP business, to test the technologies in action. This will help reduce risks for analytics and development, transformation of the demo version into a product of limited functionality.

Andrey Morozkin, Director of Operational Performance, Financial Group, "," and, a Finam Ivan Dashkevich leading AI architect from the same company, spoke together, sharing the experience of building a "corporate AI brain."

Andrey Morozkin, Director of Operational Efficiency, Finam

At a certain point, we realized that to create 80% of AI solutions, 5-6 standard modules are required: a database, a search system, information binding and a number of others, - explains Andrey Morozkin. - So the idea of ​ ​ the platform was born, and soon it itself.

The speaker listed the stages of creating a corporate AI brain. It all begins with the study of the landscape, the analysis of the needs of employees, the formation of a competence center. It is necessary to provide easy access to LLM from the desktop. We need involvement, training and practice, identification of talents.

Ivan Dashkevich, Lead AI Architect, "Finam"

It is necessary to identify not only talents, but also problems, for example, operating rooms. Collect initiatives to implement AI tools, develop and work out AI solutions, assess their potential and protect them before shareholders. Further, it will be necessary to pilot projects, find the optimal approach to the architecture of LLM solutions, form a strategy for introducing AI into companies, and develop an ecosystem.

Last year, Finam focused on four areas:

• GPT Boost training course and hackathon;
• corporate access to LLM - Chat.AI;
• piloting AI assistants;
• ecosystem for launching Finam Flaw AI assistants.

Significant progress has been made in each area, the rapporteur states. For example, Chat.AI gave an increase in time savings on solving routine tasks.

The Finam Flaw system is capable of solving problems with the help of different agents, - added Ivan Dashkevich. - Moreover, in this role of software assistants, human employees, to whom the agent writes a request, can also act.

Vladimir Orlov, product sales support specialist, Cyberprotect, presented a line of software products: Cyber Backup, Cyber Infrastructure, Cyber Protego, Cyber Files. He spoke about the options for piloting and introducing products, both independently and with the help of partners. The speaker described the capabilities of Cyber ​ ​ Backup and Cyber ​ ​ Infrastructure in more detail.

Vladimir Orlov, Product Sales Support Specialist, Cyberprotect

Since 2022, the trend towards the introduction of Russian hypervisors has been gaining strength in the market, says Vladimir Orlov. - Cyber ​ ​ Backup supports both Western hypervisors and Russian ones. Backups can be stored anywhere: in S3, on tape, and so on. Version 17.2 supports 10 thousand backups. The new version will provide 20 thousand, and in the future we plan to reach 100 thousand backup objects.

Functionality of the CYBER backup system Backup provides general protection of physical and virtual environments, guarantees protection against the ransomware virus. The product includes a web-based administration console that monitors the operation of the system and key metrics - access is organized according to the role model. The system provides balanced cross-platform protection, automatically restores damaged data, offers two options for protecting virtualization systems: backup at the hypervisor level and using agents installed inside virtual machines. FSTEC certified version - 17.2.

Vladimir Orlov noted that piloting products involves a fully functional thirty-day period and full technical support during testing.

"On trust" it is better not to work

Mikhail Ushakov, General Director, TONK Group of Companies, indicated an increase in attacks on Russian business. The number of attacks to steal money increased by 13%, attacks by exploits by 24% and by 39% - the number of critical incidents in the first half of 2024.

Mikhail Ushakov, General Director, TONK

The speaker sees a way out of the situation in using secure virtual workstations based on a thin firmware client. Mikhail Ushakov spoke about the company's technology partners (Getmobit, Kaspersky Lab, Applite, etc.), as well as projects to introduce TONK AWS in banks.

So, in one medium-sized bank, thin clients (2500 devices) with access to virtual AWS (TN1900, TN1200) are introduced. The result of the use is evident - the costs of supporting the bank's IT infrastructure have significantly decreased, the dynamics of opening new branches has increased. At one time, it was in this way that successful work was ensured during the pandemic. Remote AWS of employees were used.

Modern workplaces should be equipped with reliable secure software and hardware devices, - Mikhail Ushakov is sure. - Our device has no moving parts, it has been operating for 8-9 years without the need for maintenance.

TONK increases security and control and reduces IT infrastructure costs. In addition, there is the possibility of scaling.

Sergey Pupkevich, head of the project office, Q1X, outlined the problems of international trade. There is a lack of a centralized solution to deal with cross-border payments between importers/exporters and banks. To make payments, you have to look for someone among personal contacts. Working "on trust" carries associated financial risks. Another problem is the underdeveloped payment network between the Russian Federation and other countries and the inconvenience of coordinating details using addresses.

Sergey Pupkevich, Project Office Manager, Q1X

The speaker told how it is possible to build a digital information exchange service in order to make fast cross-border transfers and payments based on a platform that brings together customers and payment agents. Customers and payment agents are verified, able to interact, see interaction statistics, payment statuses, and more.

The appearance of the platform can be brought in accordance with the corporate requirements of the customer bank. However, Sergei Pupkevich noted that the platform is not intended for making payments, but listed the advantages of using this product:

• modular structure;
• convenient customization - quick integration of third-party services and additional functionality;
• Open source that is delivered to the customer with the platform
• omnichannel approach;
• independence from suppliers, the ability to add online services without the participation of the vendor;
• current technologies: Java, Spring, React, Twelve, PostgreSQL, Docker/Kubernetes, microservice architecture, support for deployment in the cloud.

We have created a platform that brings together customers and payment agents, "said Sergei Pupkevich. - Customers register on the platform, passing the verification procedure, after which they have a personal account in which you can create requests for payment. Payment agents select the applications with which they want to work, and declare a commission for making a payment, sending information about this to the client, who chooses the agent with whom he will work.

Oleg Assour, chief executive, SafeMobile, spoke about how SafeMobile helps banks. The solution makes it possible to pass an audit according to the requirements of the Bank of Russia (according to GOST 57580) and protect payment terminals with personal biometrics.

Oleg Assur, Executive Director, SafeMobile

SafeMobile FSTEC has a fourth level of trust certificate. The product will replace Western UEMs. VMware WorkSpace ONE, MobileIron, IBM MaaS360, Microsoft Intune have already been successfully replaced. SafeMobile reduces costs through efficient management of mobile devices as well as their access to the corporate network.

We are represented in a large number of banking structures. About 100 thousand mobile devices in various financial organizations are managed by our decision, - said Oleg Assur. - Control means simple operations: remotely install software, configure security, and so on.

During the break and at the end of the conference, the participants talked informally, and also had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the solutions and services of IT suppliers at the stands deployed in the event hall.