POST Luxembourg boosts agility by moving core banking to Azure cloud

In addition to being a leading provider of mail, telecom, and IT services, POST Luxembourg is deeply committed to financial inclusion, ensuring that even the most vulnerable populations have access to essential banking services.

POST Luxembourg—as well as being a leading provider of mail, telecoms, and IT services—helps people facing difficulties access financial services as a core part of its mission.  

“Banking services for all, including the most vulnerable, is part of POST's raison d'être,” says Chief Enterprise Architect Jeronimo Azevedo. “We put a strong emphasis on inclusion, making financial services more accessible and responsive to people's needs.” 

Having the capability to onboard new customers in an era marked by economic and geopolitical shifts, financial institutions must be agile to adapt quickly to market demands. POST Luxembourg recognized that modernizing its core banking systems was essential to fulfilling its mission of financial inclusion. “In a rapidly evolving market, adapting to new demands is challenging,” Azevedo explains. “Our legacy systems often required manual interventions to keep pace with market expectations, which was neither sustainable nor inclusive.”

This need for agility and efficiency led POST Luxembourg to migrate its core banking system to the cloud using Microsoft Azure infrastructure.

The company was preparing to ensure it would be compliant with upcoming regulations, including an EU rule compelling financial services firms to provide instant transfers across the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).

This was particularly challenging in Luxembourg, where bank transfers have typically been slower than in other EU countries. 

“With our previous system, offering instant payments would have been extremely difficult,” Azevedo says. “But thanks to our cloud transformation, we were fully prepared when the regulation came into effect in January.”

“We were able to just spin off the specific module in the cloud to fulfil this legal obligation and provide the first step for instant payments,” he adds. “And now we can deploy the remaining modules like building blocks, always prioritizing accessibility and efficiency.” 

“The fact that we can access this marketplace means we have so many capabilities in the palm of our hand,” he adds. “We will bring in things like payment modules, databases, and web servers. First though, we’ll focus more on in-house development of applications in the cloud, then we’ll do more assorted service concepts and look at getting things out-of-the-box.” 

A leader in the public sector 

POST Luxembourg is the first public sector institution in the country to move its core banking system into the cloud, setting a precedent for modernization in financial services. “We were uniquely positioned to take this step because of our deep expertise in ICT and telecommunications,” Azevedo says. 

"The POST Luxembourg Group provides innovative and state-of-the-art ICT solutions through its subsidiary POST Telecom. If we were offering these services to our clients without embracing this challenge ourselves and migrating our resources to the cloud, we would be failing to understand the core objective," he states. 

Many public sector and financial services firms in Luxembourg take a more conservative approach to technological transformation, often due to concerns about security and operational stability. However, POST Luxembourg sees its transition to Azure as a strategic and secure enabler for both innovation and financial inclusion. 

“It’s about choosing the right partner,” Azevedo emphasizes. “Cloud adoption requires expertise, and working with a knowledgeable partner is essential to making this transition smooth and effective.”

Maintenance without downtime

For technical staff, Azure cloud has streamlined parts of their work. “They have access to the data from anywhere, from any device at any time,” Azevedo says. “And many things are really nicely integrated, so they don’t need to integrate themselves, which can sometimes be a headache. It removes a lot of operational problems and makes things quicker and easier for developers.” 

End users, meanwhile, no longer have to deal with downtime to their banking services because of patches or maintenance work. Maintenance and upgrades, which previously caused service disruptions, are now seamless. “Our teams are also less impacted by maintenance work, as changes can be applied instantly with minimal service interruption,” Azevedo says. 

The cloud also allows POST to quickly bring new capabilities to end users. “We can deploy applications or new services, keep them for three months and if it works, great, if not that’s fine too. We can move in a new direction.” 

Supporting a mindset shift 

The company’s transition to the cloud required a mindset shift among internal stakeholders. 

“Our biggest challenge was ensuring that internal teams embraced the cloud without feeling they were losing control,” Azevedo says. “We focused on change management, empowering teams with the necessary skills and confidence.”  

But once they saw the functionality of the cloud in action these team members converted, he adds. “People love it and they’re learning a lot, they’re doing more. We are now looking how we can further leverage the cloud by moving other assets.”  

Microsoft and POST’s ICT entity, DEEP by POST Group, played a crucial role in this transition. “We held multiple workshops and discussions to align our architecture, security, backup, and monitoring strategies,” Azevedo explains. “Microsoft didn’t just push solutions; they listened, advised, and helped us make informed decisions.”

“Microsoft accompanied us throughout each different step, really removing the fear and being there with specialists and architects to explain things. It felt more like a friendship than a partnership. They weren’t trying to push things, they were just there to listen, to help us with the risks, and to make sure we weren’t going in the wrong direction,” Azevedo says.

In December, POST Luxembourg solidified its cloud-first approach by signing the Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC), which unlocks advanced capabilities, including AI-driven services. “This agreement gives us access to Cloud Services and AI tools that will enable us to explore new ways of enhancing our services,” Azevedo says. 

As part of its cloud adoption program, POST Luxembourg is also modernizing its development environments to accelerate innovation. “With Azure, our DevOps teams no longer have to wait for hardware provisioning or software installations—everything is ready to go, enabling faster deployment of customer-centric solutions,” Azevedo says.

“This transformation allows us to better serve all our customers, particularly those who need access to banking the most,” he adds. “With Azure, we have the flexibility, speed, and innovation capacity to continue making banking services more inclusive and accessible for everyone.”