A resilient integration backbone for digital growth

As Jana evolved from a non-banking financial company (NBFC) into a full-fledged bank, its integration requirements grew dramatically. Early data exchanges relied on spreadsheets, batch jobs, and manual orchestration, resulting in point-to-point integration, limiting scalability and visibility.

With the launch of digital banking channels, including onboarding platforms, customer servicing systems, mobile banking, customer screening applications, etc., integration touch points got multifold. Jana faced increasing complexity across systems hosted on-premise or cloud environments and external partners. Reliability, scalability, security, monitor & integration management are paramount.

As there was a strategic call to facilitate open banking, Jana needed to provide APIs to Business and Fintech partners, while managing subscriptions, enforcing quotas, logging transactions and maintaining audit trails, with a quick turn-around time.

Jana standardized its integration strategy using IBM® App Connect® Enterprise for internal orchestration and IBM API Connect® to securely expose APIs to external partners.

App Connect became the backbone for routing, transformation, enrichment, and orchestration across Jana’s private cloud and their own data centers. A strict “no peer‑to‑peer” integration policy ensured consistency and control, with limited exceptions such as OTP, e‑signature workflows prioritizing customer experience.

To support open banking and partner growth, Jana implemented IBM API Connect as a centralized API gateway. The platform enabled a self‑service developer portal where fintech partners could register, discover APIs, and request access—while Jana retained full control over authentication, authorization, encryption, rate limiting, and lifecycle management.

With IBM’s support, Jana also navigated major infrastructure changes, including a domain migration in 2025, without reinstallations or service disruption—reinforcing confidence in the stability of the integration platform.

Today, IBM solutions underpin Jana’s digital banking ecosystem. The bank manages more than 220 endpoints across internal and external channels, with API traffic growing rapidly as partner adoption accelerated.

API consumption, by partner applications, increased from a few thousand calls per day to more than 300,000 API calls daily, without performance or scalability issues. Centralized monitoring, logging, and analytics give Jana clear visibility into API usage, enabling proactive governance and compliance with regulatory requirements.

The self‑service API model significantly reduced friction for fintech onboarding, where partners can perform technical feasibility/POC themselves, while standardized security controls ensure consistent enforcement across partners. Internally, stable and reliable integration flows allow IT teams to focus on enabling new products and channels rather than managing complexity.

With a strong, governed API foundation in place, Jana is now preparing its platforms for the next phase of innovation—making APIs and data structures ready for agentic AI and intelligent automation, while continuing to scale securely and confidently.

Jana Small Finance Bank, a scheduled commercial bank, is the 4^th largest Small Finance Bank (basis AUM and Deposit size, as on 31^st March – source Fitch Report), in India with an experience of over 18 years in lending and serving more than 12 MN customers (customers served since 2008).

The Bank, launched as an SFB in March 2018, combines a strong digital banking platform with a nationwide presence of 820+ outlets across 23 states and 2 union territories (as on 31^st March, 2026).

Jana Small Finance Bank has also built a fast-growing retail deposit franchise supported by a strong brand presence and high standards of customer service.