“The improvement of performance and scalability provided by the Windows Server 2003 64-bit solution supports Banco Azteca’s central services and continuing growth.”

Jorge Arturo Mendoza del Angel, Architecture Manager, Banco Azteca

Banco Azteca is the newest and fastest growing bank in Mexico and serves nearly a million customers through 850 branches across the country.

The bank’s mission—provide financial services to the mostly underserved, working population—depends on efficiently handling large numbers of small transactions. Banco Azteca wanted to explore the performance and scalability advantages of 64-bit computing.

With support from Microsoft Corporation and Intel, the bank implemented a proof-of-concept (POC) solution using the 64-bit version of Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 Datacenter Edition operating system on HP Superdome servers with Intel Itanium2 processors.

The result was a dramatic increase in the speed and reliability of transaction handling. With the POC successfully completed, Banco Azteca will move forward with porting the rest of its core banking services to the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2003.

Overview

Country or Region: Mexico

Industry: Banking

Customer Profile

Founded in 2002, Banco Azteca runs 850 branches with 3 million accounts. The bank reaches out to the 16 million Mexicans of modest income, who are not yet served by other financial institutions.

Business Situation

The key to Banco Azteca’s success is its efficient handling of a large volume of banking and credit transactions. Scalable server technology would help enable the bank’s continued growth in this area.

Solution

As a proof of concept, a critical component of banking services wasmigrated to a 64-bit Microsoft® Windows Server 2003™ platform. Tests showed dramatic improvements in performance and reliability.

Benefits

• Increased performance—up to 70 times faster
• Scalable solution for a growing business
• Better customer service enabled
• Compatible with existing 32-bit systems