IT Outsourcing Services for Santander Consumer Bank ⚐ Comarch

About Santander Consumer Bank S.A.

Santander Consumer Bank S.A. belongs to the spanish Santander Group. Currently, the bank is one of the two largest players in the automotive financing sector.

In addition, the bank offers a wide range of attractive interest-bearing deposits (both for individuals and institutional clients) and insurance products. Santander Consumer Bank also offers unique business loans for car dealers and second-hand car outlets. There are a total of 300 bank branches nationwide.

Business Challenges

In 2006, the Santander Group‘s activity in Poland increased rapidly. The bank launched approximately 50 branches across Poland and started looking for a new IT supplier capable of supporting its growth. Modernization of the old IT environment was the first
big challenge for the new IT partner. Together with new IT devices, a new security policy and other group standards had to be implemented.

The second step was to render high quality IT services for end-users and IT infrastructure locally in bank HQ in Wrocław in accordance with a defined Catalogue of Services and specified SLA parameters. Business Continuity for critical banking applications and systems had to be ensured.

Implemented Product

Comarch signed a contract with Santander Consumer Bank S.A. in 2006. The rendering of continuous IT services was prefaced by a transition and transformation period that lasted a few months. During the transformation phase, Comarch re-built the customer‘ s IT environment. New Local Area Network and security systems were implemented and the entire server platform was migrated. Meanwhile, during the transition phase, the knowledge transfer was performed, especially for IT processes and business systems. Then, IT operations, based on a strong local team of engineers working in the customer HQ in Wroclaw and supported remotely by highly skilled professionals from Comarch HQ in Krakow, started.

Besides rendering the continuous IT services, Comarch took part in several IT projects (e.g. new mail server implementation, new backup server implementation) and in 2008 carried out the project of relocating the customer‘s entire central IT environment to a new office building. The relocation project was completed in accordance with the schedule, without any negative impact on the customer‘s business.

The smooth cooperation, professionalism and adaptation of the outsourcer to business development requirements resulted in the prolongation of the outsourcing contract, which eventually ended in 2010.

Scope of Services

Within the scope of the contract, Comarch rendered IT services as follows:

Workplace support services for over 400 users in the customer’s HQ in Wrocław
Administration of the server infrastructure
Administration of the customer’s Data Center facility
Administration of the LAN network and security systems
Administration of the WAN network for over 50 of the customer’s branches in Poland
Backup and data archiving
Administration of databases
24x7 monitoring of IT infrastructure availability and performance

Remarks from Santander Consumer Bank S.A.

At the beginning of Santander Consumer Bank S.A. activities in Poland, we were looking for a trusted partner with the infrastructure and capabilities to support our IT during pretty rapid growth. Comarch gave us great assistance during modernization of our whole IT infrastructure back in 2006 and then was rendered IT services for over 4 years. We were completely satisfied with the level of services provided and, because of this, can publicly state that Comarch displays nothing but sheer professionalism."