Financial services and Insurance

Financial services and insurance

Financial institutions place the most stringent demands on IT systems and hardware. Work is often on an international, real-time basis. Security standards are mission-critical. And downtime means lost revenue. Joho Technology’s highly experienced and qualified engineers build robust systems that can handle the most punishing environments.

Insurance and Pension Firm

Client needs: A newly established joint venture between an insurance and pension company planned to enter the soon-to-be-deregulated Japan pension market and offer a defined contribution 401(k) scheme for small- to medium-sized companies. Outside consultants were required to establish their technology systems. Requirements included establishing a complete office network including server systems for up to 50 staff, a secure network to the US head office, and a Wide Area Network to 5 remote offices throughout Japan.

Solution: Joho Technology engineers quickly established the office LAN, along with network printing and Internet access functionality. A multi-point Frame Relay system and leased lines connected all the Japan locations to the Tokyo office, while the link back to the US head office was established using a point-to-point Frame Relay circuit with an international provider. A Cisco firewall was installed. And a Cisco router, together with an RSA Authentication Server, was commissioned to provide secure remote access to the servers using SecureID hardware tokens.

Results: By interfacing closely with the US head office, a solution based in Japan could be developed that met specifications and minimized the dependency on head office resources. A highly stable network infrastructure kept the IT staffing requirements to a minimum, reducing running costs. And a scalable base of IT assets allowed the firm to expand without incurring additional major IT purchases.