Over the past few years, competition has been accelerated in the banking and finance industries following a series of mergers. To stay ahead of the competition, banks not only have to develop different sales channels to generate revenue, but they also must maintain tight budget controls. To help achieve this, new technology is the answer.

"Maintaining cost effectiveness is always a key challenge for us, especially when competition in the retail banking sector is so keen and interest margins are getting thinner. We, therefore, rely on technology to help improve our efficiency and achieve cost savings to further boost our competitiveness," says Mr. Thomas Ng, General Manager of the Information Technology Division of Dah Sing Bank.

Listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange since 1987, Dah Sing Bank is one of the predominant local banks with branches spread over Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen. They are highly familiar with the benefits brought about by the Metro Ethernet service.

"We were the first bank in Hong Kong to deploy the Metro Ethernet at different branches to improve customer service in 2003. The implementation of our branch network was a great success, so we decided to extend the benefits to our back offices as well to further strengthen inter-office communications to enhance responsive management decisions," adds Mr. Ng.

During the solution proposal stage, Wharf T&T demonstrated the strength of its Metro Ethernet service's exceptional stability and resiliency as well as the particular edge of having network platform diversity. By taking into account the professional advice of Wharf T&T, Dah Sing Bank selected a diversified network solution that links up their data centres with different back offices using Metro Ethernet service as well as a combination of Fast Ethernet and Fractional Ethernet services. With two different networks in place, this new infrastructure was especially useful in maintaining service reliability to ensure that even if one network fails, the other networks will keep their operations running smoothly.

"Network reliability is our prime concern; we cannot afford any IT disruptions that affect our daily operations. However, with this new infrastructure, we no longer need to rely on one single technology. Rather we can enjoy ease of management by maintaining two different network systems under one service provider - Wharf T&T. It greatly enhances our network reliability and efficiency while achieving significant cost savings," says Mr. Ng.

The benefits of Ethernet services are obvious. "We are able to achieve 'more' with 'less'. Supported by the latest technology, we are seeing that bandwidth can be increased with less capital investment while maintaining current service levels. The increase in bandwidth feeds the growing demand for bandwidth-intensive applications such as Internet access, office automation as well as execution of different sales channels. Most importantly, the new network systems have strengthened our disaster recovery capabilities by replicating the data to our disaster recovery sites," notes Mr. Ng.

"We were impressed that the whole implementation was so well managed and that all locations were completed smoothly and on time. We were also highly satisfied with Wharf T&T's service level and the concept of 100% uptime. Wharf T&T's professionalism fully reflects their commitment and capability in providing the best solution for us. We are certain that Wharf T&T will continue to bring us substantial value and benefits beyond just standard communications services," concludes Mr. Ng.

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