Standard Chartered Bank Selects Akamai Technologies to Create Efficiencies and Open New Markets for On-line Banking

SINGAPORE, May 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Akamai Technologies, Singapore (Nasdaq: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, today announced that it is helping Standard Chartered Bank deliver faster and more secure Internet banking applications worldwide.

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Akamai is enabling the global bank to centralize its IT infrastructure to drive economies of scale, while ensuring that the streamlined model can deliver new online banking services to customers and generate growth opportunities in new markets.  

As a global bank, Standard Chartered aims to be the leader in each of the markets in which it operates by providing quick, efficient and secure online services to customers. This model requires data centres in each geography, which is costly and complex to manage. Akamai Technologies enables Standard Chartered to adopt a model of centralised Web hosting supported by Akamai's globally distributed platform of over 65,000 servers in 1,600 locations in 70 countries globally. This means that, using Akamai's network of servers, Standard Chartered can streamline its operations to a single data centre in Asia, while actually delivering secure content more quickly and securely than local hosting.  

Furthermore, now that Standard Chartered is able to increase speed of secure content delivery with a streamlined IT infrastructure model, the bank can offer improved online banking services to customers, and open up new markets more quickly, with little additional cost. When evaluating solutions, Standard Chartered discovered that Akamai Technologies reduced the time it took Indian consumer banking customers to complete a five-step banking process from 70 seconds to 20 seconds.  Corporate banking customers in Asia saw a 25% improvement in online performance for Standard Chartered's Straight2Bank application. These improvements led to a 20% increase in the bank's online wholesale banking transaction volume worldwide.

Robert Hughes, executive vice president of Global Sales, Services and Marketing at Akamai said: "Internet banking is now a core requirement for many customers, and because of this demand, banks are looking to expand and improve their offerings. However, the pace of change in this sector places more pressure on the infrastructure, making services slower and more costly to administer. Standard Chartered is making a commitment to its customers to deliver the most efficient, secure services in the market and we're proud that Akamai is underpinning that."

Akamai has worked with Standard Chartered since 2007.  Akamai delivers Standard Chartered's public Web site and Straight2Bank commercial banking application.  As it rolls out this new retail banking platform, it was only natural to turn to Akamai.

"Akamai Technologies' acceleration solution was a natural choice for us given both the performance and cost benefits," said Aman Narain, Head of Remote Banking, Consumer Banking for Standard Chartered Bank. "Its capabilities and massive global computing platform have lived up to our demanding performance and availability requirements. We now host our corporate Web site content on Akamai Technologies' platform for superior availability and fast delivery, globally."

Using Akamai Technologies' platform Standard Chartered Bank has been able to significantly reduce its annual operating costs for hardware, bandwidth, maintenance and disaster recovery, while allowing IT staff to focus on mission-critical tasks. Standard Chartered Bank can now quickly set up services in new global markets at lower costs, giving the bank a distinct competitive advantage as it expands.  

About Akamai

Akamai® provides market-leading managed services for powering video, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai's services have been adopted by the world's most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai's global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com

About Standard Chartered Bank®

Standard Chartered PLC, listed on both London and Hong Kong stock exchanges, ranks among the top 25 companies in the FTSE-100 by market capitalisation. The London-headquartered Group has operated for over 150 years in some of the world's most dynamic markets, leading the way in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Standard Chartered aspires to be the best international bank for its customers across its markets. Leading by example, the Group is committed to building a sustainable business over the long term and is trusted worldwide for upholding high standards of corporate governance, social responsibility, environmental protection and employee diversity. For more information, please visit www.standardchartered.com    

SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.