Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) partnered with Microsoft and Swiss software company Temenos to bring Filipino banking to the cloud platform Azure and expand opportunities for financial inclusion and innovation in the Philippines.
Under the tripartite agreement, UnionBank’s fintech arm, UBX, now has the capability to enable rural banks, microfinance entities, and cooperatives in the Philippines with technology to power their financial operations quickly and bring financial services within the reach of more Filipinos.
Over the recent years, the adoption of technology in the Financial Services Industry (FSI) has grown exponentially, with recent strides on various innovations such as blockchain, virtual currency, instant payments, and robotic process automation.
In the Philippines, digital banking has also seen rapid growth, raising financial literacy among Filipinos. People who used to have no access to financial services can now enjoy a myriad of options through various customer-centric platforms, allowing them to bank at their convenience.
At the forefront of technology adoption in the Philippine banking industry is UnionBank, which recently launched its own fintech subsidiary, UBX, in order to digitally transform its banking and data integration processes. UBX allows the company to build tools such as plug-and-play services and platforms that utilize blockchain technology to help rural banks expand their markets and connect to the country’s main banking networks.
Under the partnership, UBX’s partner financial institutions gain access to Temenos’ integrated and highly scalable core banking software, hosted on Microsoft Azure, an open, flexible, enterprise-grade cloud computing platform.
“As we kickstart our initiatives in UBX and lay out our digital road map, we are excited to work with these industry powerhouses to continuously improve our services and bring a more financially-inclusive environment to all Filipinos,” said UBX president and CEO John Januszczak.
“The underbanked population in the Philippines is still very considerable. Alongside UBX, we can make that population smaller and level the financial playing field for more Filipinos. Our shared vision here is to empower banks to scale and expand their businesses at a lower cost and deliver digital banking to millions in the coming years,“ said Andres Ortola, Microsoft Philippines Country Manager.
