Banking on Broadband for Better, Faster Services

A few years back, the ability to scale became critical for WesBanco, the banking subsidiary of WesBanco Inc. According to CIO Mark Krupinski, the company has doubled in size in the last four years and has grown more geographically dispersed. It now operates 141 financial locations across West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

That posed a problem for a business that wanted network connections to foster a collaborative model for employees. WesBanco also wanted to seamlessly connect its new and existing locations to deliver first-class services to its customers.

Krupinski explains the challenge this way: “How could we grow in a way that would allow us to continue to advance our technology and take advantage of the modern opportunities out there while also managing our expenses?”

The answer involved Comcast Ethernet and internet, which enabled the company to reach its connectivity goals without overspending the budget. However, that did require a culture shift from an organization that had been relying on more traditional telecom connections. “It wasn’t the easiest of sells,” he admits.

WesBanco’s network at the time was based on traditional telecom lines with DSL backup. Krupinski explained to staff that DSL functions in essentially the same way as an internet connection. He also noted that bank information was already being transmitted over the internet, as “everybody uses electronic banking these days.”

Krupinski overcame skepticism by demonstrating that this move was a logical extension of the internet activities already involved in banking. He also pointed out that if the IT team configured and encrypted the network appropriately, it would work better, faster, cheaper and just as securely. Security is maintained through the application of encryption in multiple areas and several times over when the data is transferred.

The CIO added that business services connected through privatized systems can cost seven to eight times the cost of faster internet connectivity.

Broadband Benefits: Speed, Service, Savings

After the plan was set, it took a year to roll out the infrastructure and another year to realize benefits from it. WesBanco “had a lot of goals that Comcast was able to help us reach,” Krupinski reports. Working off broadband and a thin client model, the team was able to achieve those goals quickly and cost-effectively.

WesBanco proved the workability of the new subscription model and was able to match up the service with additional providers in areas that were not serviced by Comcast. Once the new network was fully implemented across all facilities, the company was able to measure the success of the project.

“Ultimately, what it comes down to is that you can take advantage of tech like broadband and apply an innovative perspective on that and leverage it across an entire network,” Krupinski says.

The most observable benefit is the speed of deployment. With the new setup, WesBanco can deploy infrastructure a lot faster than it was able to do with telecom connections. Krupinski says he sees a 90 percent improvement in deployment.

Speed is also a factor in transactions. As a result of broadband, transaction speeds have improved by half a percent, which translates into a much better experience for thousands of customers. “The thin client model allows us to be very nimble,” Krupinski says.

In addition to the efficiency of unifying all services with this network, WesBanco also sees substantial savings. As a result of the switch from telecom to Comcast’s services, the organization gets five times the bandwidth for a fraction of what it had been paying. It realizes up to 55 percent in savings and has been able to reduce endpoint expenses by 70 percent.

By shifting to a thin client paradigm with all the data centralized, the company eliminated the need for fully functional desktops and saved a great deal in energy consumption. WesBanco has about 1700 thin client units. The average desktop computer use had been 15 to 25 watts a day, but the current thin client usage is only seven watts per unit. Krupinski estimates a saving of 3 billion watts of electricity over the course of a year.