Digital Lending Landing Zone

🔹 Azure Landing Zone for Digital Lending

1. Identity & Access Management

• Azure AD for authentication & authorization.

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) aligned with lending business roles (Loan Officer, Underwriter, Risk Analyst, Customer Service, etc.).

• Conditional Access & MFA for security.

• Integration with existing enterprise identity provider (if applicable).

2. Networking & Connectivity

• Hub-Spoke Network topology (Hub for shared services, spokes for workloads like Lending, Payments, Analytics).

• Azure Virtual Network (VNet) with subnets for microservices, data, security.

• Azure Firewall + NSG for traffic filtering.

• ExpressRoute / VPN for secure on-prem connectivity.

• Azure Front Door / Traffic Manager for global access with load balancing.

3. Security & Governance

• Azure Policy for compliance (PCI DSS, GDPR, RBI/SEBI guidelines).

• Key Vault for secrets, API keys, encryption keys.

• Defender for Cloud for threat protection.

• Sentinel (SIEM/SOAR) for real-time monitoring & incident response.

• Managed Identities for microservices.

4. Resource Organization

• Management Groups aligned with Lending business units.

• Subscriptions for environments (Prod, UAT, Dev).

• Resource Groups per microservice domain (KYC, Loan Origination, Risk Scoring, Disbursement).

• Tagging Standards (app name, cost center, environment, owner).

5. Data & Storage

• Azure SQL / PostgreSQL (PaaS) for structured lending data.

• Cosmos DB for event-driven, document-oriented data (loan applications, transactions).

• Data Lake Gen2 for analytics & ML models (fraud detection, credit scoring).

• Blob Storage for documents (KYC files, agreements).

• Encryption at Rest + In Transit enforced.

6. Compute & Application Services

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) for microservices deployment.

• Istio/NGINX Service Mesh for service-to-service security & observability.

• Azure API Management as unified gateway (external & internal APIs).

• App Service for lightweight web portals.

7. DevOps & Automation

• Azure DevOps / GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines.

• Terraform / Bicep for infra provisioning.

• Azure Monitor + Log Analytics for observability.

• Chaos Studio for resilience testing (loan processing system uptime).

8. Resilience & Disaster Recovery

• Multi-region deployment (South India + Central India) for HA/DR.

• Geo-redundant storage & database replication.

• Azure Site Recovery for DR automation.

• Active-Active Failover for transaction consistency in lending.

📌 Text Version Flow of Azure Landing Zone for Digital Lending

[Enterprise Landing Zone Foundation] 
   → Identity & Access (Azure AD, RBAC, MFA)  
   → Networking (Hub-Spoke VNet, Firewall, NSG, ExpressRoute)  
   → Security & Compliance (Azure Policy, Key Vault, Defender, Sentinel)  
   → Resource Org (Mgmt Groups, Subscriptions, Resource Groups, Tags)  
   → Data Layer (Azure SQL/Postgres, Cosmos DB, Data Lake, Blob Storage)  
   → Application Layer (AKS, API Gateway, App Service, Service Mesh)  
   → DevOps & Automation (Azure DevOps, Terraform, Monitor, Log Analytics)  
   → Resilience & DR (Multi-Region, GRS, Site Recovery, Active-Active)  

✅ This Landing Zone ensures your Digital Lending Platform is:

• Secure (regulatory compliance)

• Scalable (microservices + cloud-native)

• Governed (policies, cost control)

• Resilient (multi-region, HA/DR)

Landing Zone Anchors (once, shared by all)

• Identity: Azure AD (MFA, PIM), Managed Identities, RBAC by domain.

• Network: Hub-Spoke VNets, Azure Firewall, NSG, Private Endpoints, ExpressRoute.

• Security & Gov: Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud, Key Vault, Sentinel (SIEM), CMK/KMS.

• Ops: Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, App Insights, Prometheus/Grafana on AKS.

• DevOps/IaC: Azure DevOps Pipelines, Terraform/Bicep, Policy-as-Code, Git repos.

• Platform: AKS (node pools per workload), API Management (external/internal), Event Hubs / Kafka (event backbone).

• Data: Azure Database for PostgreSQL (transactions), Azure SQL MI (if needed), Cosmos DB (docs/events), Data Lake Gen2 (analytics), Blob (KYC docs).

• Resilience: Active-Active (South India ↔ Central India), GRS where permitted, ASR/backup, RPO/RTO runbooks.

Microservice-to-Landing Zone Mapping

1) KYC Service

• Runtime: AKS (node pool: general), HPA enabled.

• Ingress: APIM → Internal Gateway → KYC svc.

• Data: PostgreSQL (customers, KYC status), Blob Storage (KYC docs) + SAS tokens, optional Cosmos DB for document metadata.

• Events: kyc.requested, kyc.completed, kyc.rejected on Event Hubs/Kafka.

• Secrets: Key Vault (OCR API keys, bureau creds).

• Security: Private Endpoints to DB/Blob, PII flagged via Azure Policy, RLS in Postgres, DLP in Sentinel.

• Obs: App Insights + logs to LA workspace, P0 alerts on SLAs.

• DR: Geo-replicated Blob; Postgres cross-region read replica.

2) Loan Origination Service

• Runtime: AKS (burstable node pool).

• Ingress: APIM route per product (PL/HL/Auto).

• Data: Postgres (applications, offers), Redis (session/quotas).

• Events: loan.initiated, loan.offer.generated, loan.submitted.

• Integrations: Calls KYC, Credit Score via internal APIs; workflow via Durable Functions optional.

• Security: Idempotency keys, throttling in APIM, Key Vault for bureau/API creds.

• Obs: Business KPIs (funnel drop-off) in App Insights.

• DR: Multi-region active-active for read; writer failover tested quarterly.

3) Credit Score Service (Bureau Integrations)

• Runtime: AKS (isolated node pool; egress-restricted).

• Data: Minimal—cache only; no raw bureau data persisted (policy).

• Events: credit.score.requested, credit.score.received.

• Integrations: Private outbound via Firewall to bureau endpoints/VPN.

• Security: Strict egress allow-list, request signing, masked logs.

• Obs: Synthetic checks to detect bureau SLA breaches.

• DR: Stateless; failover via DNS and retry policies.

4) Risk & Eligibility Engine

• Runtime: AKS (CPU/Memory optimized; optional GPU if ML scoring).

• Data: Feature store in Postgres/Cosmos; model registry in MLflow (on AKS/AML).

• Events: Consumes kyc.completed, credit.score.received; emits risk.decision.

• Integrations: Azure Machine Learning for model deploy; Event Hubs for features.

• Security: Model artifacts in Key Vault-backed storage; approval workflow for model promotion.

• Obs: Drift metrics to Monitor; decision latency SLOs.

• DR: Blue/green across regions; canary models.

5) Agreement & eSign Service

• Runtime: AKS (standard), or App Service if simpler.

• Data: Blob (PDFs), Postgres (agreement status, audit).

• Events: agreement.generated, agreement.signed.

• Integrations: eSign provider via APIM, webhook listener in service.

• Security: CMK-encrypted Blob, watermarking, immutable audit logs (Log Analytics tables with retention).

• Obs: Signature completion times; failure alerts.

• DR: Cross-region Blob replication; queue reprocessing idempotent.

6) Disbursement Service

• Runtime: AKS (high-reliability node pool).

• Data: Postgres (disbursement ledger), outbox table for exactly-once.

• Events: loan.approved → disburse; emits disbursement.completed.

• Integrations: Payment rails (IMPS/NEFT/UPI) via secure connectors/private link.

• Security: HSM/Key Vault for signing; dual-control ops; APIM rate limits.

• Obs: Reconcile jobs; mismatch alerts to Ops (Sentinel playbooks).

• DR: Active-active with idempotent payouts; ledger replicated.

7) Collections Service

• Runtime: AKS (general).

• Data: Postgres (EMI schedules, delinquency states).

• Events: payment.missed, dunning.started, promise.to.pay.

• Integrations: Notification service (Email/SMS/WhatsApp via APIM).

• Security: Least-privilege access, masked communications.

• Obs: Strategy effectiveness dashboards.

• DR: Standard AKS HA + DB replica.

8) Fraud Detection / Transaction Monitoring

• Runtime: AKS (optional GPU), streaming jobs on Azure Stream Analytics/Flink on AKS.

• Data: Feature store + Data Lake for training, Cosmos for real-time rules.

• Events: Subscribes to onboarding & transaction events; produces fraud.alert.

• Security: Pseudonymization pipeline, restricted analyst workspace.

• Obs: Precision/recall tracking, alert volumes.

• DR: Stream processing mirrored; DL Gen2 GZRS where allowed.

9) Customer 360 / Profile Service

• Runtime: AKS (general).

• Data: Cosmos DB (profile, preferences), Postgres (authoritative IDs).

• Events: profile.updated, consent.updated.

• Security: Consent/RLS checks in API; Key Vault for token secrets.

• Obs: PIIs access audit to Sentinel.

• DR: Multi-region Cosmos with bounded staleness.

10) Notification & Communication Service

• Runtime: AKS or Functions (serverless).

• Data: Postgres (templates, audit), Queue for retries.

• Events: Consumes domain events; emits notification.sent.

• Security: DMARC/SPF for email, audit trails immutable.

• Obs: Delivery rates, provider SLAs.

• DR: Stateless; queue-backed.

Cross-Cutting Mappings

• API Management

  • External products: Customer, Partner, Bureau.

  • Internal products: Lending-Core, Risk-ML, Ops-Admin.

  • Policies: JWT validation, rate-limit, rewrite, header scrub.

• Event Backbone (Kafka/Event Hubs)

  • Topics with schemas (Schema Registry): kyc.*, loan.*, risk.*, disb.*, fraud.*.

  • Access via SAS/ACL; consumer groups per service.

• Data & Analytics

  • Ingest events → ADLS Gen2 (Raw → Curated → Gold).

  • Synapse/Spark for reporting; Power BI with row-level security.

  • CDC from Postgres to Lake (Debezium/Azure DMS).

• DevSecOps

  • Repos per service; trunk-based.

  • Pipelines: SAST (SonarQube), DAST, container scan, IaC scan, secrets scan; signed images → ACR.

  • Progressive delivery: dev → uat → prod with approvals; canary via APIM/Ingress.

• Compliance

  • Azure Policy: encryption, private endpoints, allowed regions/SKUs.

  • Sentinel rules: PII exfil, anomalous admin, fraud spikes.

  • Backups: Postgres PITR, Blob soft-delete/immutability, recovery drills.

Text Flow (end-to-end)

Users/Partners → Azure AD (MFA) → Azure Front Door → APIM
   → Hub (Firewall, Shared Services)
      → Spoke: Lending AKS (microservices)
         → Postgres/Cosmos (Private Endpoints)
         → Event Hubs/Kafka (domain topics)
         → Key Vault (secrets, keys)
         → Monitor + Log Analytics + App Insights
      → Spoke: Data Zone (ADLS, Synapse, Power BI)
      → Spoke: Security Ops (Sentinel, Defenders)
Interconnect: ExpressRoute to on-prem / bureaus / payment rails
DR/HA: Active-Active (South India ↔ Central India), backups, failover runbooks