BNP Paribas, Orange Business Services deploy SD-WAN to French retail sites

Focused on developing and integrating new digital solutions to improve user experience for customers and employees alike, and to provide nothing less than the “highest standards”, leading European bank BNP Paribas has chosen Orange Business Services to deploy a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) in more than 1,800 bank branches across France.

By integrating Flexible SD-WAN from Orange Business Services, BNP Paribas is looking to benefit from a modern and agile technological platform to accelerate its digital transformation. It aims for the platform to enable quick and easy deployment of multiple services, such as dynamic routing and path selection, with scalability and flexibility. It is also looking to empower administrators to monitor infrastructure performance and resolve potential network congestion through simple software modifications, thereby optimising application performance.

Explaining why it decided on a software-defined infrastructure, BNP Paribas said that by deploying SD-WAN it could take advantage of a secure hybrid network that is natively multicloud, multi-access and multi-application. The bank said it would also benefit from optimised and centralised management and intelligent routing for its new infrastructure.

In terms of constructing the infrastructure, from the start of the project, technicians from Orange Business Services and BNP Paribas built the solution design together and prioritised the features to be deployed. More than 3,600 access lines – representing two per branch, including one internet access line – are currently being rolled out, with a focus on maintaining business continuity for each site during the migration. In addition to the SD-WAN overlay, firewalls for enhanced security are also part of the deployment.

“It was paramount for us to choose a partner that already had proven experience in implementing and operating SD-WAN solutions,” said Bernard Gavgani, chief information officer at BNP Paribas Group, explaining the deployment and network construction.

“Orange Business Services stood out as this trusted partner. In addition to their IT expertise, the Orange teams demonstrated a great ability to understand our business challenges, and they knew what needed to be done to support our end-to-end digital transformation. This close collaboration between our teams from the very beginning of the project was one of the keys to its success and to a smooth roll-out,” he added.

“We are delighted to support BNP Paribas in its transformation programme and deploy the first large-scale SD-WAN project in the retail banking industry for the French market. An in-depth understanding of our customers’ business needs is essential to co-develop customised and innovative solutions,” added Nadine Foulon-Belkacémi, executive vice-president for French major clients at Orange Business Services.