Online banking interest is rapidly increasing as more financial institutions build digital products and improve their core capabilities to meet user expectations in the instantaneous, always-on, realtime world. Kafka, an open-source distributed event streaming platform, has become a popular choice for architecting event-driven realtime banking ecosystems due to its low latency, scalability, high throughput, data integrity, durability, and high availability characteristics. By combining Kafka with Ably, an intelligent Internet-facing messaging layer optimized for last-mile delivery, banks can deliver dependable realtime banking apps that provide seamless user experiences while maintaining the highest standards of security and reliability.