From bottleneck to breakthrough: How Citizens Bank modernized integration with Red Hat OpenShift

Tikhnadhi Kamlakshya, vice president and manager of software engineering at Citizens Bank, saw a clear challenge: his team had a critical disconnect between their modern Salesforce platform and their legacy loan processing system, Black Knight. This gap created a significant bottleneck, hindering the bank's ability to scale its mortgage operations and forcing loan officers to spend hours manually entering data.

The main issue stemmed from communication difficulties between the 2 essential systems they relied on for their tasks. On one side, there was the modern, agile Salesforce platform, the bank's system for point of sale. On the other, the Black Knight system, a business-critical, legacy application that handled all loan processing and governance. The 2 systems couldn't talk to each other, and with millions of records to process, the bank was facing a scalability crisis.

"We were under enormous pressure," Kamlakshya recalls. "We had successfully migrated to Salesforce, but the job wasn't finished. The fact that Salesforce couldn't talk to our legacy system was a curveball we hadn't anticipated."

The search for a solution

The team at Citizens Bank explored several integration tools, but none could handle the scale and authentication requirements of the project. The team was running out of options, and the pressure was mounting. That's when Kamlakshya and his team explored Red Hat OpenShift.

"Red Hat OpenShift wasn't on our initial list," Kamlakshya admits. "We were looking at specialized integration tools. But they all failed. Red Hat OpenShift rescued us."

The solution was to build a suite of microservices on Red Hat OpenShift to act as a translator between Salesforce and Black Knight. This approach allowed the team to decouple the 2 systems, creating a smooth and scalable communication bridge. Here’s how it worked: First, a single GET request was sent from Salesforce to OpenShift. Then, OpenShift, operating as a microservice, orchestrated a sequential series of 7 additional calls to the Black Knight system. This process gathered all needed information and facilitated its transmission in real time.

From manual to modernized

The impact was immediate and transformative. The OpenShift-powered solution eliminated the need for manual data entry, saving each of the bank's 700+ loan officers an estimated 15-20 hours of work per week. The integration latency was reduced by 40%, and the bank saw a significant improvement in deployment agility with automated rollouts and rollbacks.

This newfound efficiency had a direct impact on the bank's bottom line. With the ability to process loans faster and at a greater scale, Citizens Bank achieved its goal of becoming a top 10 loan originator in 2023, a significant leap from their position before the project.

A future built on a solid foundation

With the success of this modernization effort, Citizens Bank is now looking to the future. Kamlakshya envisions a future where they can layer AI on top of OpenShift to further automate and improve the loan origination process.

"I would like to use AI to scale data processing," Kamlakshya explains. "We want to add a wrapper on Red Hat OpenShift that will help with decision-making. It's about helping our brokers close more loans and making the process more predictable."

The story of Citizens Bank is a powerful example of how Red Hat OpenShift can bridge the gap between modern and legacy systems, unlocking new levels of efficiency and innovation. It's a testament to the power of a flexible, scalable platform to not only solve immediate challenges but also build a foundation for future success.

Learn more about Red Hat OpenShift, and explore other examples of how we help our customers succeed.