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March 18-20 | Barcelona, Spaain

 
CASE STUDY

INVEX Achieves Exponential Growth with WSO2

Product Area

API Management, Identity and Access Management, Integration

Region

Latin America

Industry

Financial Services

Highlights

Exponential Growth:

INVEX grew its credit card base from 400,000 to 1 million accounts in four years.

Improved Security and User Experiences:

The solution can scale easily, allowing INVEX to securely manage user access across a growing number of systems.

Ready for Open Banking:

The platform is built to facilitate secure and compliant data sharing.

Overview

Founded in 1991, INVEX stands out as a successful Mexican bank in a crowded market. Starting off as a stock brokerage firm, the bank has since evolved into a diversified financial services provider, with three main business units: Financial Services, Renewables, and Infrastructure. This success story focuses on INVEX's remarkable growth in the credit card market, particularly as a branchless bank. For context, in 2013, the bank had a modest credit card portfolio of just 50,000 to 60,000 cards. Today, it’s the sixth-largest issuer in Mexico, currently holding a 5% market share with ambitions to reach 10%.

INVEX's rapid credit card growth was not without its challenges. As the bank transitioned to a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) strategy to integrate its client-facing apps with core systems, it recognized the need for a robust and scalable technology platform. By leveraging WSO2 products and Chakray’s expertise, INVEX was able to grow its credit card base from 400,000 to 1 million accounts in just four years.

quotes

We’ve had a very good experience with WSO2. We were banking on the technology to grow and the implementation of WSO2’s suite of solutions has been instrumental in significantly expanding our credit card base over the past four years"

José Luis Salsamendi

CTO

INVEX

Challenge

Prior to WSO2, INVEX had a disparate collection of identity systems and authentication protocols. These legacy solutions, built with proprietary languages and isolated configurations, posed challenges for user identity management. The systems couldn't talk to each other, forcing independent and complex management for each one. This siloed approach also meant security hardening required individual attention, further straining IT resources.

Beyond identity, INVEX grappled with manual coordination and inefficient workflow automation. The lack of a user-friendly interface (GUI) slowed down deployments, hindering agility. Integration with native applications was difficult due to a mix of programming languages. Repurposing existing integrations was hampered by the same incompatibility issues.

INVEX also wrestled with a lack of control over their APIs. Unstructured API creation and deployment led to inconsistencies, causing issues for different platforms. Exposing these APIs to external systems further complicated matters, requiring additional security measures. INVEX also lacked the ability to track API usage or individual calls, hindering valuable insights and potential improvements.

Objectives

To achieve their vision of becoming a leading digital financial services provider, INVEX’s objectives centered on improving security, user experiences, and operational efficiency.

  • Become a technological financial services company: INVEX wanted to move away from traditional banking methods and adopt an API-first strategy to deliver digital financial services.
  • Improve security and user experience: The bank aimed to address security challenges and create a more seamless user experience.
  • Increase agility and scalability: They want to be able to integrate new systems and features quickly and efficiently.

Solution

INVEX chose WSO2 products because they addressed the bank’s need for a unified solution with built-in API management capabilities. WSO2's comprehensive suite offered a clear advantage over piecing together point solutions from multiple vendors. Additionally, the open source nature meant lower licensing costs and greater flexibility.

  • WSO2 Identity Server: Unified identity management across all systems, including corporate, private banking, and credit card platforms, improving user experience and security.
  • WSO2 Micro Integrator: Streamlined integration processes by automating and integrating various manual and semi-manual tasks, resulting in improved efficiency and faster change implementation.
  • WSO2 API Manager: Provided the essential tools to standardize and secure APIs, ensuring better documentation, audit trails, and robust security features like authentication and authorization. This not only improved overall API management but also helped INVEX comply with regulations.

Results

INVEX's story shows how prioritizing simplicity and integration can lead to exponential growth. Key results include the following:

  • Improved API Development and Management: Significantly improved efficiency in the development and implementation of APIs by adhering to a standardized and corporate governance framework. This ensures consistency, maintainability, and reduces development time.
  • Robust API Security: Significant security improvements for API consumption. By implementing a role- and profile-based access control system, INVEX ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive data through APIs.
  • Open Banking Ready: By leveraging the capabilities of the WSO2 suite, the bank is well-positioned to adapt to changing market dynamics and continue its growth trajectory, even as the industry evolves towards more open and collaborative banking models.
  • Enhanced Application Performance: Efficient orchestration of business processes, significantly improving response times for applications. This translates to a faster and smoother user experience.
  • Unified Identity and Access Management: Consolidated identity system management on a single platform. This platform adheres to the most current industry standards, simplifying user management and enhancing security.
  • Comprehensive API Monitoring and Observability: Integrated monitoring through ELK solutions allows for more efficient event identification and faster troubleshooting. This proactive approach minimizes downtime and ensures system health.
  • Streamlined Integration: Flexibility to use different programming languages. This enables seamless integration with existing solutions, regardless of their development environment.

For a deeper dive into how INVEX was able to drive exponential growth with simplicity, we encourage you to watch this session from WSO2Con 2024.

Partner

Chakray

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