Pioneering digital finance
DKatalis is a technology company at the forefront of financial innovation, creating scalable digital solutions for its ecosystem partners. As the technology strategic partner for Bank Jago, DKatalis is dedicated to empowering people and businesses with seamless financial access. With a mission to bridge technology and trust, they develop groundbreaking products, like the Jago App, serving millions of customers across Indonesia.
The challenge: Scaling without compromising customer experience
As Bank Jago's customer base grew, fueled by an expanding ecosystem of partners, so did the volume of transactions. This rapid growth presented a critical challenge for DKatalis: how to scale transaction processing efficiently and economically without compromising customer experience. Seasonal and cyclical banking events added further pressure. DKatalis needed to ensure that the core banking system could handle the influx of activity while maintaining exemplary service and reliability for millions of users. The goal was to support this growth without letting system capacity become a bottleneck.
Our mission is to empower our partners with technology that is not only innovative but also incredibly reliable. As Bank Jago's customer base expanded, we knew we had to build a solution that could handle immense scale without faltering. Partnering with Thoughtworks allowed us to turn this challenge into a strategic advantage.
The solution: A highly scalable transaction orchestrator
In collaboration with Thoughtworks, the DKatalis engineering team designed and built a lightweight, scalable transaction orchestration layer. Thoughtworks was chosen for its experienced engineers, deep expertise in solving complex problems, and strong cultural alignment. DKatalis’ prior positive experience with Thoughtworks further reinforced the decision.
This innovative solution sits between Bank Jago’s services and its core banking system, acting as a stateful cache. This stateful cache acts like a quick-thinking assistant, handling routine tasks efficiently while staying perfectly in sync with the banking core.
The transaction orchestration layer continuously synchronizes with the core, allowing it to process transactions at high speed while reconciling the data. Built using Kotlin Spring Boot and deployed on a GCP Kubernetes cluster, this microservice-based architecture was engineered for a single purpose: to make approval decisions significantly faster while handling variable loads efficiently in conjunction with the core.
To build trust in the system, the team implemented a rigorous, phased rollout. They started by testing with live customer traffic in parallel with the core, ensuring accuracy. The first release was a 1% canary, gradually ramping up to 100% as confidence in the platform grew. Built-in observability and circuit breakers were essential, providing real-time monitoring and automatically stopping the layer if synchronization was ever lost, guaranteeing data integrity.
The impact: Resilience, confidence, and growth
The new transaction orchestrator has revolutionized Bank Jago's resilience, ensuring uninterrupted service even during planned or unplanned core system downtimes, ensuring business continuity.
Key outcomes include:
300% faster performance
Enhanced partner confidence
Enabled inorganic growth
Improved business continuity
Production measurements show the orchestration layer accelerating transaction processing well beyond the capabilities of the core alone.
The platform’s ability to provide robust support and scale efficiently has strengthened trust with key partners.
The enhanced capacity and resilience have enabled Bank Jago to pursue new partnerships with other fintechs, tapping into Indonesia’s large unbanked and underbanked population to create new revenue streams.
The orchestration layer provides the bank with transaction processing redundancy alongside the core, solidifying its reputation as a reliable and resilient institution.
This project exemplifies how a deep partnership and modern engineering practices can solve complex challenges in the financial services industry. By building a resilient, high-speed transaction orchestrator, DKatalis has not only future-proofed its platform but also set a new standard for performance and reliability in the region.
Future outlook: Expanding the foundation
Building on this success, DKatalis plans to expand the transaction processing orchestrator to include other products and services. This will deliver even greater resilience, improve performance across the board, and ensure seamless business continuity as the bank continues to innovate and grow its customer base. By investing in a scalable and modern platform, DKatalis and Thoughtworks have created a foundation for future financial innovation.
