TAIPEI, Taiwan -- 2 January 2001 -- In one of the island's largest ever financial services contracts, the Bank of Taiwan has turned to Cisco Systems for a new data communications infrastructure linking more than a 100 subsidiary branch banks and those of its wholly owned affiliate, the Land Bank of Taiwan.
Due for completion later this year, the new island-wide banking network spans 17 provinces and outlying islands forming one of the country's largest and most sophisticated branch office networks.
Based on a combination of high-end Cisco 7500 and low-end 2600 series routers, the intra-bank network will be used to carry all of the group's over-the-counter and ATM transactions as well as paving the way for new Internet-based banking services that will be rolled-out this year. The latter will allow users to open bank accounts and conduct a full array of banking transactions including applying for ATM and credit cards online.
"The Bank of Taiwan is constantly looking at ways of increasing the quality of service and upgrading the network infrastructure was an essential step in paving the way for a new array of sophisticated financial applications and Internet services," said Larry Sun, Country Manager of Cisco Taiwan.
"Cisco is pleased to be selected by the Bank of Taiwan and will provide professional technical support and consultation services in order for the bank to meet the challenge of the new financial age with higher-quality, more convenient international financial services."
The Bank of Taiwan formally merged with the Land Bank of Taiwan in December 1999, forming the largest and best capitalised bank in Taiwan. With paid up capital of more than NT$32 billion the bank was ranked 60th in the world by Euromoney magazine.
The new Cisco-based network replaces an existing hierarchical IBM SNA network which relied on low-speed SDLC links to connect each branch - transferring data at a maximum rate of 9.6-kbps. Based around high-speed T1 leased line links the new router network provides for much improved throughput.
Branch offices in the Bank of Taiwan network and the Land Bank of Taiwan will be equipped with pairs of Cisco 2600 series access routers - each backing-up the other to offer a high degree of redundancy. These routers manage and control the data flows between servers within each branch and high-end Cisco 7500 series routers installed at three Data Centres in the north middle and south of the country.
The Bank's core banking applications reside on IBM ES/9000 mainframes at these data centres.
"With millions of dollars being deposited and withdrawn from all the branches daily it was critical that the network provided the highest levels of reliability with no single point of failure possible," said Sun. "Duplication of all key network components gives the network unprecedented up-time."
The new network will allow customers of the Bank of Taiwan and Land Bank of Taiwan to open bank accounts and apply for ATM and credit cards online, providing customers with a more comprehensive financial service portfolio. The new hardware upgrade will not only reinforce the banks' risk management, but also protect customers' rights and transaction security as well as provide a variety of networking and value-added financial services to realize all-around integrated banking services.
The network main component, the Cisco 7500 series router increases the aggregated packet throughput for streamlined transmission through intelligent, highly-parallel line cards. Using distributed mechanisms and specialised ASIC devices, Cisco 7500 provides improved quality of service (QoS), network measurement and other real-world applications of advanced packet services to maximise system performance.
Cisco 2600 Series uses advanced data compression integrated modules to lower overhead costs of WAN and leverage the advanced bandwidth management features of Cisco IOS software. Cisco 2600 also provides wide support for multi-protocol route selection, voice/data integration and dial-up service. It expands and connects multi-service networks to branch offices in a cost-effective way, enabling remote users to connect to corporate LAN or the Internet.
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