Building blocks for future growth; MTF’s rapid integration platform deployment

Context 

MTF Finance is one of New Zealand’s most trusted finance companies, providing personable and tailored lending solutions across a nation-wide network of vehicle dealers and 53 franchise stores. After acquiring the‘Lending People’, MTF aims to integrate the technology systems to enhance  operations and customer service.

In the evolving financial landscape, MTF recognised the need for a modernised technology infrastructure to enable them to launch new and innovative products to the market. MTF engaged Arinco to help in aligning their IT capabilities with their business aspirations – aiming to create a robust and flexible platform where MTF could innovate. 

Business Challenge 

MTF faced several challenges due to its rapid growth and the changing dynamics of the market. Firstly, much of their ageing on-prem infrastructure was approaching end-of-life, presenting costly maintenance challenges, and slowing the pace of change. Recent acquisitions had also left MTF with disparate solutions across various on-prem and cloud platforms, creating integration difficulties. To help accelerate the modernisation of these solutions, Arinco was engaged to design and implement a robust integration platform.

The goal was to:

• Support the development team’s modernisation journey.
• Improve system security and resilience.
• Significantly reduce the time to market for new products, thereby ensuring MTF’s competitiveness in the dynamic financial landscape.

Solution 

Arinco implemented a centralised integration platform which harnesses the power of the Microsoft Cloud. Leveraging Azure API Management, the platform facilitates secure connectivity across cloud-native, on-premises, and third-party applications through a cohesive API-first strategy.

Azure Service Bus was instrumental in providing robust messaging and traceability for critical workloads, ensuring reliability in data exchange. To enhance agility, developers were empowered to swiftly deploy domain services leveraging Azure Container Apps.

In a collaborative effort with the MTF development team, Arinco focused on upskilling the team on modern cloud development strategies. With the necessary skills, this acted as a springboard, allowing MTF to accelerate their modernisation and innovation journey.

Outcome

With Arinco’s Integration Done Right™ solution, MTF was able to rapidly design and deploy a best-practice Azure integration platform in just seven weeks. The initiative led to significant enhancements in the system’s resilience, performance, and overall security posture, and provided valuable upskilling for their development team.

The implementation of infrastructure as code automated the entire platform and integration workloads deployment, resulting in substantial improvements in management, governance, and disaster recovery capabilities.

Building upon this solid foundation, MTF now boasts accelerated integration capabilities, seamlessly onboarding new acquisitions and features in response to their evolving business needs. Arinco’s solution has not only addressed immediate challenges but has positioned MTF for sustained success in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.