AWS Empaneled to Drive Digital Transformation in India's Public Sector

PSB Alliance empanels AWS to drive digital transformation for India's public sector banks

Amazon Web Services (AWS) India Private Limited* today announced that PSB Alliance Private Limited (PSBA) has empanelled AWS as a cloud service provider to offer cloud computing services to India's public sector banks. PSBA is an umbrella organisation formed by 12 public sector banks[2] and acts as a nodal body to deliver end-to-end technology-enabled banking services to them. It draws upon the strength and knowledge of member banks to develop an integrated and effective value proposition in banking operations, and provide secure financial and non-financial banking services to customers with ease and speed. PSBA supports the Government of India's financial reforms and Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE) agenda, and aims to foster innovation in the financial ecosystem. This empanelment will enable the public sector banks to seamlessly adopt AWS, the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud, through PSBA's Community Cloud Services, without a need to create separate procurement processes for their cloud computing requirements. The empanelment will allow AWS to provide its services to member banks through two AWS Managed Service Providers (MSP) - Orient Technologies and Hitachi Systems. Leveraging AWS's proven security, compliance, and governance services will enable the banks to build a secure environment that will allow them to innovate and experiment at a low-cost, and enhance banking services and features. The banks will be able to migrate to the cloud and adopt a more agile technology infrastructure in line with their business goals and digital transformation strategy, and leverage technology expertise from the MSPs. In addition, PSBA will provide banks access to software-as-a-service (SaaS) based financial service marketplaces, enabling them to offer services such as doorstep banking, and subscribe to eBKray, an innovative end-to-end listing and auction platform to manage Non-Performing Asset (NPA) loans. "Over the next few years, we expect several public sector banks to shift their non-core banking workloads to the cloud. Our endeavour to empanel AWS allows public sector banks to draw on the experience of their peers, establish and reinforce industry best practices, and take advantage of the combined scale of operations. Our member banks can secure better pricing structures and enhanced value from cloud services," said Eric Anklesaria, Senior Advisor, PSBA. "We are confident that the banks will benefit greatly from AWS's world-class security, and best practices in driving digital transformation, depth of understanding, and wide range of cloud services, to transform banking services for their customers." "Driving digital transformation in banking, achieving financial inclusion, and delivering better customer service are core priorities laid out by the Indian government's Department of Financial Services. In line with this, public sector banks are exploring more agile infrastructure and technologies to provide enhanced experiences through frontline customer-facing applications, create process efficiencies, drive data-based decisions, and build a stronger revenue growth path," said Pankaj Gupta, Leader - Public Sector, AWS India Private Limited*. "Building on AWS enables public sector banks not only to derive the benefits of reliable application performance, scalability, and cost performance, but also prepares them to quickly adopt artificial intelligence and machine learning, to create more personalized experiences for customers, and build differentiated services. AWS is excited to work with PSBA to strengthen public sector banks with the power of the cloud, and help them meet the changing demands of the banking landscape." As next steps, the MSPs will conduct a cloud migration assessment and readiness study for each of the public sector banks and help them build a migration roadmap. Initially, the banks will use cloud services for non-core banking applications, such as loan origination system, loan management system, cash management system, WhatsApp banking, IVR system (contact center), supply chain finance, customer relationship management, human resource applications, development and user acceptance test environments, data lake and data analytics, and microfinance credit management. About Amazon Web Services Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been the world's most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any workload, and it now has more than 240 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, media, and application development, deployment, and management from 108 Availability Zones within 34 geographic regions, with announced plans for 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Mexico, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Millions of customers -- including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies -- trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.

AWS enables NHA, GeM, and public sector banks to accelerate digital services in India

AWS supports India's 'Viksit Bharat 2047' vision by empowering public sector organisations to build innovative cloud-based solutions for the country's healthcare insurance, e-procurement, and banking sectors. Amazon Web Services (AWS) India Private Limited today announced that the National Health Authority (NHA), Government e-Marketplace (GeM), and Public Sector Bank Alliance (PSBA) are adopting AWS technology to build innovative, scalable, and secure solutions to drive India's digital transformation journey. Supporting NHA's mission to create an open digital health ecosystem The NHA is building on AWS to transform healthcare at population-scale and establish an open digital health ecosystem in India. It aims to build integrated digital health infrastructure in India for 1.4 billion citizens and provide health coverage to more than 550 million citizens through the Government of India's flagship schemes -- Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). The NHA is leveraging the power of AWS services to build core modules of the AB-PMJAY program-critical applications like Beneficiary Identification System and Transaction Management System-to manage beneficiary identification, and claim transaction management in a scalable, agile, and secure manner. Till date, more than 354 million Ayushman cards have been issued, more than 30 thousand hospitals are empaneled, and more than 68 million hospitalisations have been covered by PMJAY across 25 states and 8 union territories. Empowering GeM to build the world's largest public procurement platform The Government e-Marketplace (GeM) -- the world's second largest public procurement platform -- is also using AWS for its robust, scalable, and secure cloud infrastructure. GeM enables transparency, efficiency, and inclusivity in the public procurement domain (both goods and services) by government organisations and the public sector. AWS cloud services form the backbone of GeM's e-procurement features like direct purchasing, bidding, reverse auctions, price matching, demand aggregation, as well as supporting the marketplace, business operations, analysis, customer support, and payment processing. GeM enables 9,000 page views per second, 1.5 million interactions each day, and a daily transaction average of nearly ₹1,000 crore in gross merchandise value. GeM has a technology vision to digitise, automate, and transform its platform to improve efficiency, and enhance user experience, and is deploying artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI to provide customer-centric services and enable users to take data-driven decisions. Cloud services for India's public sector banks In addition, the PSBA -- an umbrella organisation formed by 12 public sector banks -- has empaneled AWS to offer flexible and optimised cloud computing services to India's public sector banks. The PSBA provides important customer-oriented services as envisaged in the government's Enhanced Access and Service Excellence (EASE) agenda. Viksit Bharat 2047 AWS shared these examples of supporting public sector customers in India at the AWS Empower India event held in New Delhi today. The theme for this year's event is Viksit Bharat 2047, which represents the Indian government's vision to transform the nation into a developed entity by the centenary of its Independence (2047). Delivering the keynote at the event, Dr Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer, Amazon.com, said, "Many of our customers, from small startups to large enterprises, are seeking ways to maximise their cloud investments and minimise waste. This is especially crucial in India, where the challenge is to build scalable, efficient digital systems serving 1.4 billion people." "The Frugal Architect approach offers core principles for building cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures, turning constraints into catalysts for innovation. I am inspired by how builders and organisations in India are poised to embrace these principles, creating innovative solutions that not only address immediate challenges but also lay the foundation for sustainable, long-term growth," said Dr Werner Vogels, Chief Technology Officer, Amazon.com. "India's public sector is laying the foundation to achieve the government's vision of a Viksit Bharat 2047, by developing population-scale initiatives, building on cloud and AI technology. Transformative innovations in our government, healthcare, and education segments for example are strengthening India's potential as a Digital Nation, and to become a technology sandbox for the world," said Pankaj Gupta, Leader - Public Sector, AWS India Private Limited. "At AWS, we are fortunate to co-innovate with our customers to help them achieve their missions -- whether it is delivering better healthcare, improving access to quality education, enhancing financial inclusion, or improving business prospects of small businesses and startups," said Pankaj Gupta, Leader - Public Sector, AWS India Private Limited. Investing in India's digital future AWS has made a significant commitment to India's digital future, investing more than $3.7 billion between 2016 and 2022 in its cloud infrastructure to drive innovation and enable local businesses and organisations across the country. Building on this foundation, AWS plans to invest an additional $12.7 billion in its cloud infrastructure in India by 2030, further solidifying its role as a key enabler of India's technology growth. This combined investment represents one of the largest in India's tech sector, aimed at supporting the nation's transformation into a global digital powerhouse. Committed to India's digital future AWS also works with various other government entities and education customers. Here are some examples. National Skill Development Corporation: NSDC runs its citizen-scale skilling platform called Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH) on AWS. SIDH is intended to serve 800 million users across India to create a skilled workforce, and contribute towards the government's goal of a fully developed India.Swachh Bharat Mission: The Swachchata App by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) is a mobile-based grievance redressal application, supporting the Government of India's Swachh Bharat Mission. It uses advanced AWS technologies for powering real-time geographic information system (GIS), analytics-based dashboards, business intelligence, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and drone-based monitoring of sanitation assets.Co-WIN: These examples showcase continued innovation of national platforms on AWS. Besides powering Co-WIN, enabling seamless registration, real-time vaccination status tracking, and certificate generation for millions, AWS also powers DigiLocker, which provides citizens anytime and anywhere access to authentic digital documents.PhysicsWallah: AWS is also a key technology enabler for education technology leaders like PhysicsWallah. It provides them the cloud computing foundation necessary to build, experiment, and transform their solutions to deliver high-quality online and offline learning experiences for millions of students, and grow their businesses. AWS's journey in India AWS marked its entry into India by establishing its first office in Mumbai in 2011. This was followed by the launch of the AWS Asia-Pacific (Mumbai) Region in 2016, which enhanced local cloud service capabilities. In 2022, AWS expanded its footprint further by setting up the AWS Asia-Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, its second in the country. This provided customers more options to run workloads with even greater resilience and availability, securely store data in India, and serve end users with even lower latency.

AWS says public services platforms adopting its tech to build solutions

"Many of our customers, from small startups to large enterprises, are seeking ways to maximise their cloud investments and minimise waste," said Amazon's chief technology officer Werner Vogels.Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud computing arm of Amazon, Wednesday said several public services platforms, including those from industries such as healthcare, web-based state commerce and banks, are adopting its technology to build solutions to drive India's digital transformation journey. The company shared the examples of supporting public sector customers - the National Health Authority (NHA), Government e-Marketplace (GeM), and Public Sector Bank Alliance (PSBA) - at the AWS Empower India event held in New Delhi. "Many of our customers, from small startups to large enterprises, are seeking ways to maximise their cloud investments and minimise waste," said Amazon's chief technology officer Werner Vogels. "This is especially crucial in India, where the challenge is to build scalable, efficient digital systems serving 1.4 billion people." He added that builders in India are poised to embrace principles of the 'frugal architect' approach for cost-aware, sustainable, and modern architectures, turning constraints into catalysts for innovation, creating innovative solutions that address immediate challenges as well as lay the foundation for sustainable, long-term growth. Pankaj Gupta, leader - public sector, AWS India, said, "India's public sector is laying the foundation to achieve the government's vision of a Viksit Bharat 2047, by developing population-scale initiatives, building on cloud and AI technology. Transformative innovations in our government, healthcare, and education segments for example are strengthening India's potential as a Digital Nation, and to become a technology sandbox for the world." He noted that AWS is co-innovating with customers for missions such as delivering better healthcare, improving access to quality education, enhancing financial inclusion, and improving business prospects of small businesses and startups. AWS said in a statement that the NHA is building on AWS to transform healthcare at population-scale and establish an open digital health ecosystem in India. For instance, it is leveraging it to build core modules of the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Manti Jan Arogya Yojana program including critical applications like Beneficiary Identification System and Transaction Management System. The company said that its cloud services form the backbone of GeM's e-procurement features like direct purchasing, bidding, reverse auctions, price matching, demand aggregation, as well as supporting the marketplace, business operations, analysis, customer support, and payment processing. Further, the PSBA, an umbrella organisation formed by 12 public sector banks, has empaneled AWS to offer flexible and optimised cloud computing services to India's public sector banks. AWS has invested over $3.7 billion in cloud infrastructure in India between 2016 and 2022, marking its significant commitment to India's digital future, the statement said. It plans to invest a further $12.7 billion by 2030. Its platforms have powered various other government initiatives such as the vaccination application CoWin and digital document application DigiLocker. The National Skill Development Corporation's skilling platform Skill India Digital Hub and the Swachh Bharat Mission's Swachhata app also leverage its technologies.