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Belgium 9-6-26 Invitation Only Virtual english
Data availability keeps growing, but decision-making often feels slower. Every function builds its own dashboards, metrics multiply, and reports begin to contradict each other. What was meant to improve transparency now creates confusion. The problem is not access to data but alignment on interpretation. When information becomes noise, confidence in reporting collapses. People hesitate to act, functions challenge each other’s numbers, and trust in analytics erodes. The challenge lies in restoring clarity: deciding which metrics matter, who owns them, and how reporting connects back to action. Let’s discuss how to simplify information flows, define consistent metrics, and reconnect dashboards with decision-making. How ownership, cadence, and shared understanding bring alignment back. A closed conversation on rebuilding confidence in data, where clarity replaces overload and information once again supports action.
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Belgium 10-6-26 Invitation Only Physical english
In the middle of the night, 200 miles from the coast, the alarm sounds. The "Man Overboard" cry isn't just about a person in the water; it’s the ultimate test of a crew’s preparation, psychological grit, and split-second communication. For the modern European CIO, the "Man Overboard" moment happens in the data centre, the boardroom, or the headlines. When the system fails, the pressure doesn't just sit on the servers; it sits on you. Join CIONET for an exclusive VIP evening at the coast, a deep dive into the Human and Digital Anatomy of a Crisis. We will explore why some leaders thrive under the crushing weight of a "Black Swan" event while others capsize, and how data serves as the steady keel that keeps the ship upright.
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Belgium 12-6-26 Invitation Only Physical english
AI started small: a few pilots, some dashboards, a couple of chatbots. But then it spread, quickly. Now every department wants a model, every vendor adds “AI-powered” to their pitch, and every regulator is asking about risk and transparency. Governance suddenly went from a nice idea to a full-time job. Scaling governance is harder than launching AI. Policies look great on slides, but in practice, ownership blurs and enforcement stalls. Central control slows things down, while local freedom invites risk. Everyone agrees AI should be safe and ethical, but no one agrees on who signs off when something goes wrong, all leading to AIs living as permanent PoCs. So how do you scale oversight without creating bureaucracy? How do you distribute responsibility between IT, business, and compliance? And what controls actually hold up when AI keeps changing after deployment? Let’s explore how organisations make governance part of daily operations, not an afterthought. A closed conversation for those trying to keep AI credible, compliant, and under control while it spreads across the enterprise.
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June 9, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english
Data availability keeps growing, but decision-making often feels slower. Every function builds its own dashboards, metrics multiply, and reports begin to contradict each other. What was meant to improve transparency now creates confusion. The problem is not access to data but alignment on interpretation.
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June 12, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english
AI started small: a few pilots, some dashboards, a couple of chatbots. But then it spread, quickly. Now every department wants a model, every vendor adds “AI-powered” to their pitch, and every regulator is asking about risk and transparency. Governance suddenly went from a nice idea to a full-time job.
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June 18, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english
Becoming event-driven sounds like the logical next step: real-time visibility, faster response, tighter integration. The promise is appealing, no? But turning that vision into reality is another story. Where do you start, with technology, operating model, or mindset?
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CIONET Trailblazer: CISO: The Shift from Prevention to Resilience: Turning Visibility into Execution
Published on: January 28, 2026 @ 9:48 AM
CIONET Trailblazer: AI Transformation: Bridging the Cultural Divide to Achieve Competitive Advantage
Published on: December 17, 2025 @ 9:16 AM
novobanco delivers personalized digital experiences to customers
Portugal's novobanco sought to reinvent banking with personalized, digital customer experiences. The bank decided to migrate to a container- and microservices-based application infrastructure. Microsoft Azure Red Hat® OpenShift®, a jointly managed solution, helped the bank adopt a hybrid environment for new and existing applications.
Portugal’s novobanco sought to reinvent banking with personalized, digital customer
experiences based on open banking practices. To support this strategy, the bank decided to
migrate to a container- and microservices-based application infrastructure. Microsoft Azure
Red Hat OpenShift, a jointly managed solution, helped the bank adopt a hybrid environment for
new and existing applications. Now, using continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/
CD) and DevOps approaches, novobanco has increased its digital services adoption, reduced
time to market for applications, and improved partner integration using open banking
application programming interfaces (APIs).
Rethinking physical and digital banking experiences
novobanco operates a vast network of branches and business centers across Portugal,
complemented by its novobanco Linha Direta telephone banking service and digital banking
offering, novobanco Online.
Shortly after American equity firm Lone Star Funds acquired 75% of its capital in 2017, the bank
engaged management consulting firm McKinsey & Company to help define a three-year IT strategy.
“We needed to change the way we developed our offerings to speed time to market,” said Manuel
Domingues, CIO, novobanco. “Achieving that goal meant addressing four key areas of our business
to increase efficiency: our technology, our processes, our organization, and our culture.”
Working with McKinsey, the bank planned a new approach to digital business based on cloud
computing and big data, supported by a microservices-based architecture and DevOps practices.
This new approach would not only help reduce operating costs but also support entry into new digital
markets with open banking application programming interfaces (APIs).
“By changing how we acquire and engage with our customers, across physical and digital channels,
we could meet our larger goal of expanding our customer base,” said Domingues.
Building a managed, secured environment for application development
After searching for a cloud platform, novobanco chose Red Hat OpenShift for its local enterprise
support and multicloud capabilities.
“Red Hat OpenShift was the ideal choice to be able to deliver customer services flawlessly while
switching between hosting containers on-premise and in the cloud,” said Domingues.
The bank worked with Red Hat Consulting to test several use cases, including running a microservice
in Red Hat OpenShift using the Spring Boot Java™ framework, a DevOps pipeline for automating
development processes, and a proof of concept (POC) demonstrating digital channel interactions.
Next, the bank deployed Microsoft Azure Red Hat OpenShift in production and began migrating
its applications—as microservices—to this on-premise environment, jointly managed by Red Hat
and Microsoft. Red Hat’s single sign-on (SSO) technology helps secure novobanco’s microservices,
integrating with the bank’s existing Azure Active Directory servers to validate user credentials and
extract identity information.
The bank now uses its container environment—as well as React.js, an open source JavaScript user
interface library—to design and deploy low-code front-end applications, such as its smartphone app.
Focusing on innovation for customers and partners
Reduced time to market for digital services
With a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) approach supported by DevOps
processes and automation, novobanco can deliver new, personalized services to its customers
faster. For example, the bank recently developed new push notifications for transaction validation
that improve security and reduce messaging costs for customers. Additionally, using Red Hat and
Microsoft’s cost-effective, jointly managed service also helps novobanco stay productive by
mitigating time-consuming infrastructure maintenance tasks
The bank is already seeing positive outcomes from spending less time on routine delivery processes
and more time on innovation, including 20% year over year (YOY) growth in mobile interactions and
a 7% YOY increase in the number of active digital customers. As the result of a 165% YOY increase
across most of its portfolio, digital now makes up more than 1/3 of the bank’s total product sales.
As part of this approach, the bank is developing frameworks for various needs—such as simulations or
integration—with defined patterns that can be reused by more than one development team
Improved responsiveness with scalable, supported hybrid infrastructure
With plans to design all new applications to be cloud-native, novobanco can use its vendor-agnostic
Red Hat OpenShift container environment to prevent lock-in to specific cloud providers. The flexibility to move workloads between clouds will help the bank cost-effectively scale to meet demand.
Additionally, developers no longer need to build applications to run in specific environments, improving productivity and supporting DevOps collaboration.
“With Red Hat OpenShift, we can move workloads between on-premise and off-premise environments without needing to change any code,” said Domingues. “Some applications will remain on
premise for now, such as those with specific regulatory requirements, any that might be affected by
latency, or any that have not yet been optimized for microservices or the cloud. When we’re ready, we
have the flexibility to move them to Azure Red Hat OpenShift without any service interruptions or
outages.”
Improved support for integration with third-party partners
Supporting its open banking API approach with a scalable, secure integration process will help novobanco enter new digital banking markets by partnering with other financial services organizations.
“Running containers and microservices on Red Hat OpenShift allows us to support open banking APIs
as well as integrations with SaaS or PaaS technology solutions from partners,” said Domingues.
Enhanced technology adoption with expert support and guidance
Engaging Red Hat Consulting and participating in Red Hat Training on Red Hat OpenShift helped the
bank’s teams quickly gain the necessary skills to support its digital strategy. In addition to support
during the POC stage, Red Hat consultants helped stabilize the bank’s OpenShift cluster in production, set up a cluster for testing configuration changes, and manage platform implementation and
upgrades. For example, the bank continues to work with Red Hat for infrastructure, development,
and application architecture optimization.
“Red Hat Consulting helped us take advantage of best practices so that we could focus on developing solutions and integrations that meet our business needs and delivering new features to market
faster,” said Domingues.
Enhancing hybrid approach to continue digital services journey
novobanco plans to continue using Red Hat OpenShift as the foundation for both legacy and new
applications, with a goal to shift up to half of its modernized applications to run in a multicloud environment. The bank is also looking to adopt Red Hat Runtimes, a set of lightweight runtimes and
frameworks that are ideal for highly distributed microservices architectures.
“Hybrid infrastructure and DevOps are changing the way we develop our services and applications,
and Red Hat OpenShift is an essential part of our journey to digital delivery,” said Domingues. “As we
evolve, we expect to achieve further scalability and reliability, among other benefits.”
About novobanco
novobanco is a reference in the Portuguese financial system, recognized by its high standards
of service quality and commercial dynamics with which its clients, individuals, companies, and
institutions are served. It addresses a broad range of clients’ financial needs, acting in a transversal
way in all areas of financial services, such as retail and corporate banking, asset management, and
insurance. https://www.novobanco.pt/
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CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.
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The Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.
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Découvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !
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CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.
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