KB Kookmin Bank & KB Securities

Seoul, South Korea - Provision of South Korea's most modern trading floors in the heart of downtown Seoul.

KB Kookmin Bank

KB Kookmin Bank is the largest South Korean bank in terms of market capitalization and the 60th largest bank in the world (2017). Founded in 1963 and with over 26,000 employees, KB Kookmin Bank provides retail, corporate and investment banking services throughout South Korea and has a growing international presence across the Asia Pacific region as well as offices in New York and London.

KB Securities

Also founded in the early 1960s, KB Securities is a subsidiary of the Seoul Stock Exchange-listed KB Financial Group. KB Securities offers a wide variety of financial services including online, bond and securities trading, brokerage, underwriting and consulting for mergers and acquistions. KB Securities is committed to innovating processes, intensifying digital competencies and building sustainable management infrastructure.

Background

KB Bank has been a satisfied WEYTEC customer for over seven years, using a robust if slightly aging solution including remoted PCs and a profusion of MK06, EKlight and standard keyboards. As on many trading floors, there were complicated moves, adds and changes (MACs) consuming IT resources. So when KB Bank decided to move their two trading floors to a different building, co-located with KB Securities's trading floor, they wanted a solution to eliminate the hassle and expense of inefficient MACs. They turned to their trusted partners; for technology to WEYTEC and for service to ITS Convergence, who has faithfully served the KB Bank for over a decade and is our local sales and service partner in South Korea.

KB's Vision

KB Bank has visited other major banks with advanced trading floors in Europe and envisioned Korea's most modern trading floor for their new site. Having studied concepts for the "trading floor of the future", they were determined to build a fully integrated trading floor with high performance PCs, ergonomic workplaces and free seating. Gone are the days when trader moves were restricted to two tight time windows per year. KB Bank and KB Securities would catapult their facilities to the forefront of trading on the Korean peninsula.

The Solution

KB Bank and KB Securities chose identical distributionPLATFORM solutions with full redundancy designs for their trading rooms, which are physically separate but located on different floors of the same building. Not only does this foster professional collaboration between both companies' trading departments, but also their IT staffs, which further simplifies maintenance procedures.

Each workplace is outfitted with a single smartTOUCH multifunctional keyboard with integrated Bloomberg and Reuters keypads. There are no PCs at the desk: all 804 workstations and additional sources are located in one of two physically secure and efficiently cooled system rooms.

Practical Benefits

KB Bank and KB Securities have achieved the most advanced trading floor in Korea. But more importantly, their traders, managers and IT staff appreciate the practical benefits of the new solution in their pursuit of daily business challenges.

Free Seating means that traders move easily from one desk to another at will. They take their personal keyboard inlays with them, login to the distributionPLATFORM, and have immediate, real-time access to all their sources and presets from their current position. PC performance improved measurably with the ultraFLEX miniPCs, and traders and managers alike are very keen on the real-time access to all their systems and sources.

The traders appreciate more generous and ergonomic workspaces without noisy, space-stealing PCs under the table. Executing trades on their smartTOUCH keyboards is faster, easier and more error-free. Finally, all the users are very enthusiastic about the convenience of WEYTEC mouse switching, with quick and seamless switching between sources and screens by moving their mouse from one screen to another.

You can download the full case study here:

Case KB Bank & KB Securities

Facts & Figures

Workplace Optimization

  • 280 trader and management positions
  • each with 2, 3, 4 or 6 screens per desk

Multifunctional Keyboards

  • 280 smartTOUCH keyboards with Bloomberg and Reuters keypads

KVM-over-IP 

  • IP Remote II 
  • 824 Transmitters / 804 Receivers

WEYTEC distributionPLATFORM

  • 804 Sources
  • Two fully redundant WDPs

ultraFLEX miniPCs

  • 6 ultraFLEX miniPCs 

System Rooms

  • Two system rooms

The Project Challenge

The biggest challenge for WEYTEC and ITSC was the exceptionally tight timeline from the placement of the order to the committed cutover date. The hardware was manufactured in-house at WEYTEC in Switzerland, delivered and deployed by ITSC in Seoul all within 60 days from the signing of the contract. WEYTEC offers and honors double guarantees, that customized solutions will fully meet the functional specifications of the proposal, and projects will be completed on time and on budget.

Co-location with KB Securities in the same building is expected to facilitate collaboration with other capital markets within the group, which is expected to give a differentiated insight into the markets.

KB Bank Head of Capital Markets

When KB Kookmin Bank and the capital market sector of securities were scattered across buildings, there was a problem promoting collaboration. The new trading floor solution is a basis for sharing market information and for promoting cooperative marketing with customers.

KB Bank Capital Market Division Trading Department, Team Head

I am very happy that the functions I wanted were implemented and the live date was successful on the first day without any problems. In addition, even though everyone uses an average of three PCs, there are no PCs, noise, heat or extra fans in our smart dealing room. There is also less working overtime due to changing seats.

KB Bank Capital Market Division Trading Department, Assistant Manager
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