2021: Top five core banking deals
Capping off 2021, FinTech Futures takes a look back at some of the year’s top core banking deals.
From community-owned banks to international giants, the year has been peppered with financial institutions looking to update their legacy systems and provide their customers with the 21st century services they require.
Here are five of the top core banking stories across 2021.
Taiwan’s CTBC Bank signs core banking deal with Avaloq
In September, Taiwanese financial institution CTBC Bank selected Avaloq to provide core banking software for its international banking operations.
CTBC is Taiwan’s largest private bank by consolidated AUM and boasts more than 116 branches across 14 countries – the largest international presence of any Taiwanese bank. The Swiss financial services software firm will initially see its Avaloq Core solution rolled out across CTBC’s business units in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Avaloq claims its digital banking solutions are used by 150 financial institutions across the world.
It said the relationship with CTBC will drive further growth for the firm in the Asia-Pacific market, building on its local presence with offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, Pune and Sydney.
Thought Machine wins major core banking deal with JP Morgan Chase
Thought Machine founder and CEO, Paul Taylor
Also in September, Thought Machine secured a deal with major US bank JP Morgan Chase for the deployment of its flagship core banking system, Vault.
JP Morgan’s Chase retail bank will transition to Vault in the US. The bank selected 10x Future Technologies to power Chase’s UK operations.
The deal was another major step for UK-based Thought Machine in its quest to break into the US market. The week prior, it signed another US client in Arkansas-based Arvest Bank.
Rohan Amin, Chase chief innovation officer, said the partnership gives the bank an opportunity to “take full advantage of the cloud”.
The bank reportedly tested the Vault core system through the simulation of large traffic volumes.
Mambu wins new digital banking deals in Colombia and Vietnam
In August, banking technology vendor Mambu won a pair of new deals, in Colombia and Vietnam, for its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) core banking platform.
Colombia’s Financiera Dann Regional picked Mambu to power the launch of IRIS, the lender’s new digital bank for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
In Vietnam, Mambu won a deal with Timo, a new digital bank which claims to be breaking new ground in the country.
“We selected Mambu’s cloud banking platform as we understand the value in leveraging a cloud-native, true SaaS core banking platform as we look to scale our business,” says Henry Nguyen, CEO of Timo.
“The fact that Mambu’s platform utilises AWS’ comprehensive suite of services also gave us an additional layer of confidence.”
Egypt’s MIDBANK picks Temenos for digital banking revamp
Temenos secured a number of deals this year
In November, Egypt’s MIDBANK tapped banking software firm Temenos to power its digital transformation.
The bank will deploy Temenos Transact as its core product and the Temenos Infinity digital banking platform to replace its legacy systems.
MIDBANK, known as Misr Iran Development Bank until a rebrand in March this year, provides retail, corporate and investment banking services and says it wants to become an “agile, high-touch, high-tech bank”.
MIDBANK will switch all its existing banking services, including retail and corporate customers’ accounts, savings and card facilities, to Temenos Transact.
Temenos Infinity will underpin the bank’s pivot to digital-first mobile and online banking, in line with the Central Bank of Egypt’s efforts to boost financial inclusion and the country’s move to a cashless society.
Russian digital bank Tinkoff taps Finastra for Asian expansion
In December, Russian neobank Tinkoff selected Finastra and its Fusion Essence Cloud core banking solution as the firm looks to bring its digital banking services to Asia.
Tinkoff, which currently serves more than 18.5 million customers, plans to open a subsidiary bank in the Philippines as part of its wider Asian expansion strategy.
Reports that the firm was seeking a banking licence in the country came to light back in August. It’s believed the bank’s offshoot in the Philippines would have an initial capital of $40 million.
George Chesakov, international expansion lead at Tinkoff, says the bank was looking for a partner that could “help us launch quickly, enable rapid growth, and help us to navigate the local requirements of a new market”, and that Finastra’s platform “meets all these needs”.
Finastra says its cloud-native Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering will allow Tinkoff to “build a system tailored to its requirements”.
