Google Cloud Platform Case Studies Auka: Scaling Mobile Payments Safely and Reliably with Google Cloud

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	Auka: Scaling Mobile Payments Safely and Reliably with Google Cloud Google Cloud Platform

Auka: Scaling Mobile Payments Safely and Reliably with Google Cloud

Google Cloud Platform

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Cement Telecommunications
Use Cases	Construction Management Infrastructure Inspection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Data Science Services
Challenge	Auka, a Norway-based fintech company, provides white-label technology to banks on a SaaS model. The company connects banks, consumers, and merchants, enabling a new generation of commerce and financial services. However, Auka faced the challenge of building a safe, reliable payments platform that could also scale at great speed. The company's home market, Norway, had over 2 billion card transactions in 2016 alone, the highest per-capita rate in the world. The mobile wallet adoption rate in the Nordic region was even more impressive, reaching 65% in 2016. This paved the way for mobile payments to replace cash and cards in a few years. Auka needed a solution that could handle this extreme scaling, from ten to thousands of transactions a second, while also complying with international financial regulations. Read More
About Customer	Auka is a fintech company based in Norway that provides white-label technology to banks on a SaaS model. The company connects banks, consumers, and merchants, enabling a new generation of commerce and financial services. Auka was recognized as the fastest growing fintech by Deloitte on their annual Technology Fast 500 EMEA list. The platform is currently being used by 17 banks, tens of thousands of merchants, and millions of consumers. Auka was the first to run payments entirely in the cloud in Norway under its previous brand name mCash. After selling the mCASH brand to Norway’s second largest financial institution, SpareBank 1, the company relaunched as Auka. Read More
Solution	Auka turned to Google Cloud for a solution. Google Cloud's App Engine provides the backbone of Auka’s infrastructure, allowing the company to delegate the challenge of scaling the server-side infrastructure. This enabled Auka to focus its resources on building the best possible platform for its partners. Auka also used BigQuery for reporting and data analytics, enabling the company to process massive amounts of data in seconds. This optimized everything from merchant reporting to user behaviour analysis within the apps. Auka’s staff could easily build dashboards and run analyses with Looker Studio and Cloud Datalab, keeping track of growth and identifying areas of improvement. Meanwhile, Apigee API Platform and Cloud Endpoints helped Auka open up its APIs, enabling customers to further tailor Auka’s services to their needs. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Machine Learning

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Cement

Telecommunications

Use Cases

Construction Management

Infrastructure Inspection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Data Science Services

Challenge

Auka, a Norway-based fintech company, provides white-label technology to banks on a SaaS model. The company connects banks, consumers, and merchants, enabling a new generation of commerce and financial services. However, Auka faced the challenge of building a safe, reliable payments platform that could also scale at great speed. The company's home market, Norway, had over 2 billion card transactions in 2016 alone, the highest per-capita rate in the world. The mobile wallet adoption rate in the Nordic region was even more impressive, reaching 65% in 2016. This paved the way for mobile payments to replace cash and cards in a few years. Auka needed a solution that could handle this extreme scaling, from ten to thousands of transactions a second, while also complying with international financial regulations.

About Customer

Auka is a fintech company based in Norway that provides white-label technology to banks on a SaaS model. The company connects banks, consumers, and merchants, enabling a new generation of commerce and financial services. Auka was recognized as the fastest growing fintech by Deloitte on their annual Technology Fast 500 EMEA list. The platform is currently being used by 17 banks, tens of thousands of merchants, and millions of consumers. Auka was the first to run payments entirely in the cloud in Norway under its previous brand name mCash. After selling the mCASH brand to Norway’s second largest financial institution, SpareBank 1, the company relaunched as Auka.

Solution

Auka turned to Google Cloud for a solution. Google Cloud's App Engine provides the backbone of Auka’s infrastructure, allowing the company to delegate the challenge of scaling the server-side infrastructure. This enabled Auka to focus its resources on building the best possible platform for its partners. Auka also used BigQuery for reporting and data analytics, enabling the company to process massive amounts of data in seconds. This optimized everything from merchant reporting to user behaviour analysis within the apps. Auka’s staff could easily build dashboards and run analyses with Looker Studio and Cloud Datalab, keeping track of growth and identifying areas of improvement. Meanwhile, Apigee API Platform and Cloud Endpoints helped Auka open up its APIs, enabling customers to further tailor Auka’s services to their needs.

Impact #1	With Google Cloud, Auka built a powerful, resilient financial services platform that can accommodate the ever-growing volume of mobile transactions not just in Norway but throughout Europe and the rest of the world. In the summer of 2017, Auka won the award for best mobile payments platform in Europe at the CFI Magazine Technology Awards, vindicating its decision to base itself 100% in the cloud. Auka continues to improve and evolve its platform, experimenting with Google’s suite of machine learning tools for predictions and automations as well as Cloud Spanner for globally consistent scalable storage of relational data. Auka is already looking beyond Europe, helping and advising banks worldwide to take advantage of this technology to grow their position in the market.

Impact #1

With Google Cloud, Auka built a powerful, resilient financial services platform that can accommodate the ever-growing volume of mobile transactions not just in Norway but throughout Europe and the rest of the world. In the summer of 2017, Auka won the award for best mobile payments platform in Europe at the CFI Magazine Technology Awards, vindicating its decision to base itself 100% in the cloud. Auka continues to improve and evolve its platform, experimenting with Google’s suite of machine learning tools for predictions and automations as well as Cloud Spanner for globally consistent scalable storage of relational data. Auka is already looking beyond Europe, helping and advising banks worldwide to take advantage of this technology to grow their position in the market.

Benefit #1	Handles extreme scaling, from ten to thousands of transactions a second with App Engine
Benefit #2	Processes massive amounts of data in seconds with BigQuery
Benefit #3	Enables customers to tailor Auka’s services to their needs with Apigee API Platform and Cloud Endpoints

Benefit #1

Handles extreme scaling, from ten to thousands of transactions a second with App Engine

Benefit #2

Processes massive amounts of data in seconds with BigQuery

Benefit #3

Enables customers to tailor Auka’s services to their needs with Apigee API Platform and Cloud Endpoints

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Overview

Auka: Scaling Mobile Payments Safely and Reliably with Google Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit