Two of the banks -- National TRUST Bank of Russia and PermataBank of Indonesia -- are upgrading their IT infrastructures with new POWER7 servers. The National Microfinance Bank (NMB) of Tanzania has also opted to use Power Systems to support the accelerated expansion of its business.

"Banks in growth markets are turning to IBM's Power Systems not only to improve efficiencies, cut costs and better manage their operations, but also to run advanced analytics to gain insight into business trends and improve their competitive position," said John Vitkus, Director of Power Systems from IBM's Growth Markets Unit. "Customers are turning to IBM systems because of our innovative technologies, long-term investments and stable roadmap. They see Power Systems as a sound investment, in contrast to SPARC-based systems, which have rapidly lost share in the last year."

National TRUST Bank - Russia

National TRUST Bank is undergoing a reorganization of its 140 branches and subordinate offices in 171 cities across Russia. The bank selected five IBM POWER7 servers as the backbone of its new business infrastructure.

With the new system, the bank expects to increase performance by 33% while reducing operating costs by 30%. Power consumption is also expected to be reduced by 45%. One of the areas to benefit from the increased performance and high data processing speeds is business analytics, enabling TRUST Bank to increase the speed of decision making and gain greater insight into emerging customer trends.

"In selecting IBM POWER7, we have chosen a system that provides the best possible cost/performance ratio," said TRUST Bank board member and CIO Aleksey Katrich. "As we reorganize our network across Russia, the new system will provide the additional capacity we need while allowing us to make efficiencies and cut costs."

PermataBank - Indonesia

PermataBank, one of the leading financial institutions in Indonesia, has upgraded its core banking systems with IBM's new POWER7 Systems. With the new infrastructure, PermataBank will be able to manage millions of data-intensive transactions and analyze that data in real time, helping to improve customer service while increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

IBM POWER7 will enable the bank to analyze customer data, helping it to better manage current demand for its products and services as well as predict areas of potential future growth. The new system will also enable PermataBank to manage applications and services at less cost, with technology breakthroughs in virtualization, increased energy savings and more cost-efficient use of memory.

"PermataBank requires the best technology solutions on the market and we are proud to become the first bank in the ASEAN region to implement IBM POWER7," said Terry Mak, Head of IT Group, PermataBank." IBM's Power Systems will play a key part of our server consolidation, enabling us to improve our services and grow our business."

National Microfinance Bank - Tanzania

The National Microfinance Bank (NMB) of Tanzania has selected IBM technology to transform its core banking technology infrastructure, supporting the bank as it accelerates its business expansion across Tanzania.

IBM will provide NMB with Power Systems and IBM DS8700 Storage, as well as Tivoli Storage Manager software. With the new system, the bank expects to see an improvement in efficiency and a reduction in costs. The infrastructure was also chosen for its reliability and scalability as NMB paves the way for future growth. With the transformation of its banking technology infrastructure, NMB expects to increase its capacity to launch more products and services and take on more clients.

"We turned to IBM to help transform our core banking systems and infuse innovation throughout our extensive branch network, helping to increase customer service, cut costs and improve our competitive position on the market place," said John Ncube, NMB's Chief Information Officer. "We looked at various offerings from other vendors but came to the conclusion that, with its solution, IBM provided the best combination of price/performance and industry expertise."