KB Kookmin Bank: Pioneering Open-Source Banking with MySQL Enterprise Edition

Introduction & Background

KB Kookmin Bank, South Korea’s largest bank by total assets, stands at the forefront of the nation’s financial landscape. Headquartered in Seoul, it offers a comprehensive range of personal, corporate, and international banking services to over 30 million customers, supported by more than 3,000 ATMs and 1,100 branches across South Korea and several international offices.

Established in 2001 through the merger of Kookmin Bank and Korea Housing Bank, KB Kookmin Bank has expanded significantly, transforming into the KB Financial Group in 2008. The bank is committed to being a trusted financial partner, emphasizing customer-centricity, innovation, and shared growth. In 2022, it enhanced its personal finance application, KB Star Banking, aiming to provide customers with seamless access to financial services across its diverse affiliates.

Business Challenges & Goals

A key feature of KB Star Banking is the KB Star Club, a membership program that rewards customers based on their transactional activities. This system aggregates extensive data from various KB Financial Group companies to determine membership levels and offer personalized benefits. However, as transaction volumes soared, the bank faced challenges in managing and processing this data efficiently.

To support its growing business needs, KB Kookmin Bank sought a robust database solution capable of handling large-scale data extraction while ensuring integrity and security, as mandated by the Korea Financial Supervisory Service. Traditionally reliant on proprietary databases like Oracle and IBM DB2, the bank recognized the potential of open-source databases to reduce costs and improve operational efficiency.

Moreover, given the financial sector’s service-oriented nature, immediate technical support was essential for seamless database operations and rapid issue resolution.

Business Results & Metrics

By deploying MySQL Enterprise Edition as the foundation for its KB Star Club membership system, KB Kookmin Bank achieved significant improvements in stability, availability, and cost efficiency. This strategic shift not only marked a departure from conventional banking practices but also positioned the bank as an industry leader in embracing open-source solutions.

With MySQL Enterprise Edition, the bank can efficiently process vast amounts of complex transactional data monthly, including credit card transactions and bank deposits across its nine affiliated companies. This capability enhances data integrity and ensures precise assignment of customer membership levels, aligning with compliance requirements.

The bank successfully validated over 300 test items during an exhaustive proof-of-concept phase, demonstrating compliance with the stringent standards set by the Korea Financial Supervisory Service for operational reliability and disaster recovery.

Leveraging MySQL Replication, KB Kookmin Bank created redundancy for load balancing and disaster recovery, significantly improving IT infrastructure availability and operational resilience. The use of MySQL Enterprise Backup further accelerated backup processes, safeguarding critical financial data and enabling rapid recovery in the event of disasters.

The collaboration with MySQL Support provided the bank with specialized technical assistance available 24/7, ensuring smooth operations and minimizing downtime for the group membership platform.

Why MySQL Enterprise Edition?

In its quest for a suitable database solution, KB Kookmin Bank thoroughly evaluated multiple options, including PostgreSQL, MariaDB, and MongoDB. Ultimately, it chose MySQL Enterprise Edition for its proven stability, robust technical support, cost-effectiveness, and comprehensive enterprise features, such as advanced replication and secure backup solutions.

Sunghyun Choi, a representative of the bank, emphasized the importance of breaking away from conservative norms in the financial sector: “MySQL Enterprise Edition offered the robustness needed to efficiently collect and process data from all nine entities within the KB Financial Group. The support service was a crucial factor in our decision.”

To implement MySQL Enterprise Edition, KB Kookmin Bank partnered with Oracle Partner Rockplace, whose expertise was instrumental during the extensive seven-month proof-of-concept phase. Rockplace provided essential consulting services, technical implementation support, and user training, ensuring the successful deployment of the new database system.

Conclusion

KB Kookmin Bank’s selection of MySQL Enterprise Edition exemplifies a forward-thinking approach in the banking industry. By leveraging open-source technology, the bank not only enhanced operational efficiency but also set a new standard for innovation in financial services. As it continues to grow, KB Kookmin Bank is well-positioned to remain a leader in the dynamic landscape of South Korea’s banking sector.