<\/span>The Challenge: Scaling a Core Credit System Under Continuous Availability and Regulatory Constraints<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nAs CardX scaled its digital credit products, limitations in its legacy architecture<\/a> became increasingly restrictive.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe core platform relied on multiple database systems, including IBM DB2, supporting different components of credit processing and campaigns. Scaling required vertical expansion and manual provisioning, increasing cost and operational risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.pingcap.com\/files\/2026\/02\/03215410\/image-2-1024x572.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFigure 1: <\/em><\/strong>Original Data Architecture for CardX<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nThis architecture led to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- Latency<\/a> during peak transaction periods<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Limited horizontal scalability<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Planned maintenance<\/a> windows incompatible with 24\/7 financial services<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Fragmented data across transactional and analytical systems<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
For a digital-first credit platform operating at scale, these constraints directly impacted customer experience, engineering velocity, and SLA compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>The Solution: A Cloud-Native Distributed SQL Foundation for Core Credit Operations<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nCardX selected TiDB as the distributed SQL foundation for its core credit card system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TiDB was deployed on AWS EKS in the Singapore region, providing cloud resilience, regional reliability<\/a>, \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 compliance-ready infrastructure<\/a> aligned with financial services requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.pingcap.com\/files\/2026\/02\/03215408\/image-1-1024x575.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nFigure 2:<\/em><\/strong> TiDB-centric architecture for real-time credit transaction processing<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nKey elements of the implementation included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- Zero-downtime DB2 migration: <\/strong>Approximately 3.4 million credit card accounts were migrated from IBM DB2 to TiDB using continuous replication, dual-write validation, and controlled cutover. The migration was completed without service interruption, preserving data integrity for a core financial workload.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Financial-grade availability: <\/strong>TiDB\u2019s distributed architecture and automatic failover<\/a> eliminate single points of failure, enabling continuous operation for mission-critical credit transactions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Unified transactional and analytical workloads: <\/strong>TiDB supports real-time OLTP and analytics on the same data, removing silos between the Silverlake M\u00f6bius core system, digital channels, and downstream analytics and risk pipelines.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Cloud-native operations: <\/strong>Running on Kubernetes allows CardX to scale database resources dynamically while maintaining consistent performance and governance under Accenture-managed operations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>The Results: Financial-Grade Scale, Resilience, and Cost Efficiency at Production Scale<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nWith TiDB in production, CardX achieved measurable improvements across scale, reliability, and operational efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n- Scalable growth without re-architecture: <\/strong>TiDB supports 20\u201330% year-over-year growth in digital customer acquisition without database redesign<\/a> or service disruption.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Elastic cost efficiency for financial workloads: <\/strong>CardX scales TiDB resources up during intensive workloads such as End-of-Day (EOD) batch processing and scales down afterward. This elasticity has delivered an estimated 15\u201320% reduction in cloud and operational costs<\/a>, without compromising SLA compliance<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Always-on reliability: <\/strong>TiDB delivers 24\/7 uptime with financial-grade availability, supporting continuous credit processing and regulatory expectations.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- Faster product delivery: <\/strong>MySQL compatibility<\/a> and simplified operations enable faster development cycles and quicker rollout of new digital finance products across CardX\u2019s platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cBefore TiDB, scaling required constant re-engineering and long maintenance windows. Now, our database grows as fast as our customer base. We simply add nodes without service interruption.\u201d
\u2014 Kanognate Charoensedtasin, CTO, CardX<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/span>What\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nCardX plans to extend TiDB beyond its core credit card system to support additional workloads, including analytics, risk modeling<\/a>, \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 future digital finance services<\/a> \u2014 establishing a reusable data platform across the SCBX digital ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The core platform relied on multiple database systems, including IBM DB2, supporting different components of credit processing and campaigns. Scaling required vertical expansion and manual provisioning, increasing cost and operational risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1: <\/em><\/strong>Original Data Architecture for CardX<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This architecture led to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For a digital-first credit platform operating at scale, these constraints directly impacted customer experience, engineering velocity, and SLA compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n CardX selected TiDB as the distributed SQL foundation for its core credit card system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TiDB was deployed on AWS EKS in the Singapore region, providing cloud resilience, regional reliability<\/a>, \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 compliance-ready infrastructure<\/a> aligned with financial services requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 2:<\/em><\/strong> TiDB-centric architecture for real-time credit transaction processing<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Key elements of the implementation included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n With TiDB in production, CardX achieved measurable improvements across scale, reliability, and operational efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore TiDB, scaling required constant re-engineering and long maintenance windows. Now, our database grows as fast as our customer base. We simply add nodes without service interruption.\u201d CardX plans to extend TiDB beyond its core credit card system to support additional workloads, including analytics, risk modeling<\/a>, \uadf8\ub9ac\uace0 future digital finance services<\/a> \u2014 establishing a reusable data platform across the SCBX digital ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>The Solution: A Cloud-Native Distributed SQL Foundation for Core Credit Operations<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>The Results: Financial-Grade Scale, Resilience, and Cost Efficiency at Production Scale<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\u2014 Kanognate Charoensedtasin, CTO, CardX<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/span>What\u2019s Next<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n