Building Ebank's Private Cloud and Banking-as-a-Service Platform

Export Development Bank of Egypt was built to serve Egyptian exporters. In focused, specialized, and effective corporate banking. But Egypt's banking market was shifting. Consumer demand for digital banking was growing fast, and EBank made a strategic decision to enter retail banking while continuing to grow its corporate services.

That decision came with a clear requirement: the technology infrastructure had to be ready for it. Not just for what the bank needed today, but for what it would need to build, launch, and scale tomorrow.

EBank set out to move away from traditional, rigid architecture and build a cloud-native foundation that could support core banking, internet and mobile banking, content management, and process automation; all integrated, all scalable, and connected in one place.

Sumerge partnered with EBank to make that foundation a reality, delivering the first implementation of its kind in the Middle East and Africa.

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When EBank decided to expand into retail banking, the technology team faced a reality that many banks in the region know well: the existing infrastructure was not built for speed or flexibility.

Launching a new digital service meant long development cycles. Deploying an update to one system risked disrupting others. Integrating new channels with legacy systems was slow and technically demanding. And as the bank prepared to serve a new segment of customers who expected seamless digital experiences across mobile, internet, and ATMs, the gap between what the infrastructure could deliver and what the business needed became increasingly hard to ignore.

The IT team also faced a structural risk: adding new platforms on top of old ones without a clear architectural strategy would create a larger, more complex monolith which would be harder to manage, slower to change, and more expensive to maintain. The bank needed a different approach entirely.

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Sumerge designed and deployed EBank's private cloud on Red Hat OpenShift, consolidating IBM Cloud Pak for Integration, IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation, and internet banking onto a single cluster. Rather than running each system on its own dedicated hardware stack, everything ran together on one unified, cloud-native platform.

This was not just a technical choice. It meant EBank's teams could deploy, update, and manage services independently without one change affecting another. New digital channels and services could be built on top of the same platform through open APIs, creating a Banking as a Service foundation that supports current operations and future open banking ambitions.

Sumerge also built a centralized KYC repository on the same cluster, digitizing customer record management and onboarding. A disaster recovery site was established in parallel to ensure the bank's operations could continue uninterrupted.

Getting there required more than technology deployment. Sumerge worked cross-functionally with EBank's network, infrastructure, and firewall teams to onboard them onto an entirely new way of operating. Stabilizing a cluster running multiple component versions simultaneously was one of the most technically demanding parts of the engagement — and one of the most important milestones to reach before go-live.

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For EBank, the platform delivered immediate operational gains and positioned the bank for long-term growth in Egypt's fast-evolving digital banking landscape.

• The bank can now launch new digital services faster, with less risk and less dependency between teams

• Customers get a more reliable, consistent experience across internet banking, mobile, and other channels

• KYC and account management processes are fully digitized, reducing manual handling of customer records

• The BaaS platform gives EBank a foundation for B2B integrations and open banking initiatives as regulations evolve

• Business and IT teams have greater agility to respond to market demands without being constrained by legacy architecture

For the Egyptian banking sector, this was a significant marker. EBank became the first bank in Egypt to run a private cloud of this scale using container-based infrastructure, a model that sets a new standard for how banks in the region can approach digital transformation.

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• Red Hat OpenShift
• IBM Cloud Pak for Integration
• IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation

Export Development Bank of Egypt was established in 1983 with a mission to support and grow Egyptian exports across all sectors. Traditionally a corporate bank, EBank expanded into retail banking to capture the growing demand for consumer financial services in Egypt and the wider region. The bank continues to invest in technology as a core enabler of its growth strategy

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