IBM announced the successful completion of a core banking modernization initiative with Philippine National Bank (PNB), delivered in collaboration with BizTech consulting firm CROZ, an IBM Business Partner. Led by IBM Expert Labs, the modernization helped PNB achieve significant improvements in operational resilience that support its long‑term sustainability and ability to respond to evolving business and customer demands, as well as the central bank’s mandate for a secure and reliable banking system.
As banks play a critical role in managing systemic risks and ensuring the safe delivery of financial services to the economy, maintaining robust and reliable core banking operations has become increasingly essential to maximize business value. PNB’s modernization directly addresses this imperative by strengthening the stability of its infrastructure.
The two-year project involved PNB’s core banking system upgrade from IBM z/VSE on z14 to run on the modern IBM z/OS platform on IBM z16 along with using IBM Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) to strengthen mainframe security and system controls.
Since going live, PNB has achieved measurable operational improvements such as production slowdown being eliminated entirely, coming from twice per month to zero. Additionally, nightly end-of-day pre-processing validation time was reduced from five hours to two hours while batch processing time decreased by nearly 75 percent from 13 hours to just three hours. These major improvements have enabled business processes to run more efficiently, freeing IT teams from late-night monitoring and troubleshooting and allowing them to focus on other critical tasks.
The initiative was delivered in phases through close collaboration between IBM, CROZ, and PNB’s internal teams. The phased approach was designed to minimize risk while ensuring operational continuity with the z/VSE core banking system. Knowledge transfer and hands‑on enablement ensured PNB’s teams are equipped to independently manage, operate, and further evolve the modernized environment.
“Ensuring the reliability and resiliency of the bank’s operations is central to PNB’s commitment to enhancing the customer experience as market expectation and regulatory requirements evolve. PNB’s 27 years of partnership with IBM and collaboration with CROZ are critical to addressing that imperative while enabling continuous innovation across our business products, services and processes,” said Constantino Yap, SVP and Group Head for Digital Channel Management and Innovation, PNB.
“Aside from modernizing PNB’s core infrastructure, the IBM-CROZ team shared their z/OS knowledge and assisted the Bank’s z/VSE mainframe technical support personnel, who were keeping the lights on with the z/VSE core banking system while implementing and learning the modern z/OS operating system and built-in tools”, said by Michael Morallos, FSVP and Group Head for Information Technology, and Cesar Buhay, Project Director, PNB.
“Successful modernization depends as much on partnership and execution as it does on technology. Working closely with IBM and PNB, we ensured a smooth transition while empowering the bank’s teams to build confidently on their modernized platform,” said Kresimir Mudrovcic, Board Member, CROZ.
“Financial institutions across the Philippines face the imperative to modernize mission-critical infrastructure while maintaining the stability and security their customers depend on. This collaboration with PNB and CROZ demonstrates how IBM is helping BFSIs in strengthening operational resilience while building a foundation for future innovation,” said Leo Capinpin, Country General Manager and Technology Leader, IBM Philippines.
With this milestone, IBM, PNB, and CROZ demonstrate how disciplined modernization and strong collaboration can strengthen mission‑critical banking environments and help financial institutions build resilience, maintain trust, and maximize business value.
