How OceanBase Powered Sichuan Rural Credit Union’s Core System Upgrade and Boosted Customer Efficiency

Sichuan Rural Credit Union (Sichuan Nongxin), founded in 1951, now operates 5,022 branches, employs nearly 40,000 staff, holds assets close to CNY 2 trillion, and processes about 3 billion transactions daily, moving roughly CNY 1 trillion each day.

Strategic Shift to Distributed Architecture

In September 2018 the bank completed its "Smart Bank" IT blueprint and launched the "ShuXin Cloud" platform, choosing OceanBase as the native distributed database foundation. The platform now supports nearly 50 critical business systems, including inclusive finance, intelligent marketing, smart counters, and auto‑banking.

Concrete Efficiency Gains

After the migration, card‑opening time dropped from about half an hour to under five minutes, and the loan‑approval workflow shrank from 3‑5 days to 1‑33 minutes. Mobile‑banking transaction volume became 5‑6 times that of traditional counter channels, while online operation costs fell dramatically. The distributed architecture reduced overall construction and operation costs by more than 40%, equating to an annual saving of CNY 2‑3 billion.

Why Native Distributed Database?

The article compares three distributed‑database routes: (1) distributed middleware + single‑node DB, (2) shared‑storage expansion with asymmetric nodes (common in public‑cloud offerings), and (3) native distributed databases. OceanBase, as a native solution, offers strong consistency, high availability, multi‑active capabilities, and superior Oracle/MySQL compatibility, making it the preferred choice for the bank’s stringent requirements.

Migration Process

The transformation was divided into four stages: selection and testing, top‑level architecture design and standards, pilot‑then‑scale rollout, and focused breakthroughs on core accounting systems. Each stage involved comprehensive technical evaluations, ACID support checks, disaster‑recovery metrics, performance benchmarks, and multiple expert reviews.

Disaster‑Recovery Architecture

The bank built a “three‑site five‑center” multi‑active disaster‑recovery design across Chengdu, Ya’an, and Luzhou, achieving city‑level load balancing, RPO = 0 and RTO < 30 seconds. In the event of a site failure, traffic can be shifted to another node within 20 minutes with zero data loss.

Operational Benefits

Performance improved to tens of thousands of TPS, and high‑concurrency peaks such as Double 11, New Year, and Spring Festival are handled smoothly. OCP’s white‑screen monitoring enhances operational efficiency. OceanBase runs on both X86 and ARM servers, supporting hybrid hardware deployments and facilitating domestic‑technology upgrades.

Future Directions

Looking ahead, the bank plans to complete the three‑site four‑center five‑node architecture, deepen cloud‑native and AI integrations, and accelerate big‑data initiatives to further enhance customer acquisition, risk control, and digital service levels.