At the center of global trade, a leading credit insurer carries a critical responsibility: protecting international businesses from the financial impact of customer insolvency and delayed payments. Its credit insurance platforms underpin complex, high‑volume operations across the entire credit and debt‑collection lifecycle, where accuracy, resilience and trust are essential.
Turning Regulatory Pressure into Platform Play
That foundation came under pressure when the insurer faced a defining moment. Two forces converged at once. The first was strategic: an urgent need to modernize a fragmented data architecture and strengthen an evolving security posture. The second was regulatory: the introduction of IFRS 17, a new accounting standard that fundamentally reshaped how insurers calculate premiums, requiring five-year, forward‑looking cash-flow forecasts with far greater transparency, control and auditability.
At the same time, the insurer saw a powerful opportunity to unlock productivity and efficiency through GenAI. But innovation came with risk. Sensitive customer data needed stronger protection. Identity and access controls had to be unified across regions and newly acquired entities in the UK, Spain and the Netherlands. Zero Trust security had to be enforced consistently. And GenAI adoption needed guardrails built in from day one.
This was not a challenge that incremental fixes could solve. It demanded a programmatic transformation, one that could modernize data, security and governance in parallel, while ensuring regulatory confidence and future readiness.
To deliver on this ambition, the insurer partnered with Persistent with a clear mandate: bring best‑in‑class engineering practices, modernize the current state and ensure uncompromising regulatory compliance – while building a secure, AI‑ready foundation for the future.
From Vision to Velocity with Databricks at Core
Persistent launched the engagement by first defining what “future‑ready” must look like. We then built a clear, five‑year roadmap to get there, with Databricks at anchor.
The roadmap brought together cloud‑native security, DevSecOps practices and the Databricks Lakehouse architecture to create a foundation designed not just for compliance, but for long‑term performance and trust. We laid the groundwork for a platform that could scale securely under regulatory scrutiny by pairing enhanced data models with a Zero Trust security framework spanning applications, infrastructure and data.
What began as a strategic advisory engagement with the client’s CISO quickly evolved into end‑to‑end execution. We modernized identity and access controls, tightly aligning them to Databricks data access and analytics workflows. This, backed by tool consolidation and process standardization, quietly removed friction, reduced complexity, and set the stage for more predictable operations.
To support IFRS 17 and anticipate what might come next, Persistent guided the client from traditional DataOps to a Databricks‑powered Data Mesh on Azure. Data ownership shifted to business domains, enabling teams to build governed, interoperable data products directly on Databricks, an approach that would prove critical for transparency, auditability and forward‑looking financial reporting.
As the client retired legacy on‑premises systems, Databricks became the unifying layer across regions. Pipelines were modernized, performance optimized and operations stabilized globally resolving long‑standing silos without disrupting live programs.
By the time the transformation reached maturity, the client had more than a modern platform. It had a Databricks‑led foundation that enabled connected intelligence, centralized governance and the confidence to move faster. This culminated in a board‑level roadmap for cyber resilience and a secure path toward enterprise‑ready GenAI.
Data Foundation that Powers Decision Engine
With Azure Databricks at the core, the client achieved full IFRS 17 compliance and rolled out enterprise-wide Zero Trust security, giving leadership confidence that regulatory requirements were met without slowing the business.
- 5X Faster Data Processing: One of the biggest wins was speed. Core data processing, which used to take close to 10 hours, was cut down to just 2 hours. Monthly data loads became fully automated, reducing manual effort and the risk of errors. Behind the scenes, Databricks‑native optimizations and targeted code refactoring reduced processing time by 80% and storage costs by 70%, directly lowering infrastructure and run costs.
- 99.9% Data Availability: The Databricks platform consistently delivered 99.9% availability, ensuring regulatory reporting ran smoothly and on time. With more stable pipelines and fewer failures, support teams spent far less time troubleshooting. Manual effort across data operations dropped by 85%, while monthly support tickets fell from around 140 to just 20. Faster fixes and fewer disruptions led to happier users and a CSAT score of 10/10.
- Process Transparency to AI Scale-up: The way teams worked began to change. Within three months, the insurer moved to an SLA‑driven, outcome‑based delivery model, bringing greater accountability and predictability to service delivery. Clear cost transparency and a well‑defined team structure gave leadership the confidence to scale the program, ultimately securing board approval for a dedicated Cyber Resilience Office and setting the stage for secure data, analytics and AI innovation at scale.
By working closely with business, security and technology leaders, Persistent helped shape decisions that balanced compliance, cost and innovation. The engagement wasn’t just about building a platform—it was about enabling better decisions, clearer accountability and a roadmap leadership could stand behind. That trusted partnership ultimately gave the client the confidence to invest, scale and move forward, knowing its data and security foundations were built for what comes next.
