Transforming banking with a smarter data approach

The banking world is changing fast. Customers want more, regulators are stricter, and the demand for instant insights is relentless. For many financial institutions, outdated systems and scattered data make it tough to keep up, let alone lead the pack. In this post, we’ll dive into how a top financial tech company teamed up with Qubika to tackle these challenges head-on, using a modern data platform to build scalable, secure, and efficient solutions that are ready for the future.

Old systems, new demands in financial services

Our client, a major player in financial services, was hitting roadblocks that slowed their growth and operations. Their aging tech, built for slow batch processing, couldn’t deliver the real-time insights they needed. This made decision-making sluggish and onboarding new partners a slog, costing them opportunities in a fast-moving market.

Sharing data with fintech partners was another headache—near real-time integrations and secure data exchange were critical, but their systems just weren’t up to the task. On top of that, regulatory pressures were intense. Meeting strict compliance standards with fragmented systems was a constant struggle, especially when it came to tracking data lineage and ensuring governance. And not to forget the struggles with documenting CI/CD processes. Without proper records or automated deployment, rolling out updates and adopting best practices was a slow, manual process. They needed a complete rethink of their data setup to power their Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) vision and stay competitive.

Building financial services for the future

Working with Qubika, the client laid out clear goals to turn things around. First, they wanted to modernize their infrastructure with a scalable lakehouse architecture. Set up something that could handle real-time data ingestion, transformation, and analytics to fuel growth.

Next, they focused on speeding up partner onboarding by making data sharing faster and more secure, with strong governance to keep everything in check. Improving documentation and CI/CD processes was also a priority, with plans for consistent, version-controlled deployment and clear, up-to-date records to streamline operations.

Finally, they aimed to boost data quality using tools like Databricks Delta Live Tables to catch errors and ensure reliable pipelines, giving them confidence in their insights.

A unified, powerful solution for banking

To make this vision a reality, the team built a robust tech stack around the Databricks Lakehouse Platform. This included tools like Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Data Science, Workflows, Delta Live Tables, and Data Streaming, which together created a seamless system for handling everything from batch processing to advanced analytics and machine learning. Delta Sharing made it easy to securely share data with partners across platforms.

The whole setup ran on Azure Cloud with Data Lake Storage Gen2, ensuring scalability and cost-effective storage as data volumes grew. The team also leaned heavily on software engineering best practices like Git-based CI/CD, separate environments, integrated alerts, and new documentation standards to build a reliable, mature operation.

The platform’s design centered on a lakehouse architecture that could handle both batch and streaming data for near real-time reporting and analytics. Automated pipelines took care of incremental data ingestion, managed schema changes, and validated data to handle the variability of partner datasets. End-to-end governance, with tight access controls, detailed data lineage, and cost optimization, ensured compliance and efficiency at every step.

Real results, real fast

The new platform delivered game-changing results. By consolidating ETL and analytics tools into one system, the client slashed infrastructure costs and reduced staff overhead, making their data operations leaner. Partner onboarding became a breeze—what used to take 1-2 months now took just 2 days, speeding up new product launches and strengthening fintech partnerships. The platform’s real-time governance and audit capabilities also ensured compliance with tough financial regulations, boosting security and trust in their data.

This project shows how Qubika’s expertise in data and AI can solve big challenges in financial services. With a modernized data infrastructure and a lakehouse approach, the client is now ready to innovate, scale, and stay ahead in the fast-evolving world of digital banking.