Founded in 2013, Vietnam Public Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PVcomBank) emerged from the merger of Petro Vietnam Finance Joint Stock Corporation (PVFC) and Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (WesternBank). Since then, it has grown to become one of Vietnam’s top five digital banks, serving over three million customers across retail, SME, commercial, and corporate segments under its commitment to "Banking for Everyone."

PVcomBank places a strong emphasis on innovation, fostering a culture where curiosity and experimentation are encouraged. Failure is seen as an opportunity to learn rather than a setback. This approach led to the creation of its Venture Studio, providing a space for start-ups to develop new concepts with less risk. The bank’s data sandbox further supports this by enabling safe experimentation with data to explore new opportunities that benefit both customers and employees.

Strengthening mobile banking

For PVcomBank, mobile banking has long been the core of its retail operations. However, by 2022, it became clear that its mobile services were not meeting customer expectations.

“Our mobile business was growing – we’d acquired a million new customers in 2022,” explains Mr. Trinh Vinh Hien, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Data Officer at PVcomBank. “Unfortunately, our customer satisfaction score for mobile banking was 60 per cent. We knew we had to make improvements.”

Customers reported slow performance and a lack of engagement with the mobile app. At the same time, rolling out new features took over four weeks, limiting the bank’s ability to innovate. “The limitation of our traditional architecture and legacy technologies had suppressed innovation and slowed our business growth,” Mr. Hien says.

To address these issues, PVcomBank set out to find a more advanced omnichannel digital banking platform, one that could provide a seamless customer experience across different channels and throughout the customer lifecycle.

Finding the right solution

“We spent around six months evaluating potential vendors,” Mr. Hien says. “We assessed how the various solutions’ end-to-end capabilities might fit with our digital service footprint and compared the scalability, configurability, security, and overall architectures.”

The answer, however, was already close at hand. PVcomBank had been using Temenos core banking for retail and corporate services for seven years, along with Temenos Trade Finance. When it came across Temenos digital banking, the transition seemed like a natural fit.

“We’d already been benefiting from Temenos’s highly automated processes that have allowed us to increase efficiencies and reduce manual tasks. We were delighted when we found that Temenos digital banking could meet our requirements, too,” says Mr. Trinh Vinh Hien.

The move also had an impact on Trade Finance. “With the smart banking capabilities of Temenos digital platform, we can now digitize Temenos Trade Finance, meaning we can further increase efficiencies, reduce manual tasks, and bring this service into online channels for customers.”

PVcomBank was also reassured by the level of support available. “There’s a strong Temenos footprint in Vietnam, so this, along with our previous experience working with the company, assured us that we would get all the support we required to accelerate the implementation and get up and running quickly,” Mr. Hien explains.

Recognizing that its legacy architecture could slow down deployment, PVcomBank used the Temenos API framework to modernize its systems.

“By transforming our existing enterprise layers into open APIs, with integration between the enterprise service bus and Temenos digital banking’s backend, we could de-couple our legacy infrastructure and benefit from Temenos digital banking’s cloud-native architecture,” Mr. Hien shares.

This integration allowed PVcomBank to improve efficiency, automate processes, and enhance the customer experience with faster service delivery.

A new chapter in mobile banking

In April 2024, PVcomBank launched its new mobile banking solution. “We have already migrated one million retail customers who now benefit from a consistent journey across any device and on any channel,” Mr. Hien says. “We expect to extend the service to all of our three million customers by June 2025, and we also hope to onboard at least 500,000 new customers this year through a B2B2C model.”

The upgraded app offers fast and simple onboarding, AI-powered assistance, and personalized offers based on spending behaviors. Performance issues have been resolved, with response times now averaging under a second.

“The customer onboarding time has reduced by 70 per cent. At the same time, we’ve witnessed a 130 per cent increase in customer acquisition using the new digital platform and a 200 per cent increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online,” Mr. Hien says.

Operational improvements have also been significant. “By deploying Temenos digital banking in a cloud-agnostic architecture, our operational efficiency has increased by 40 per cent,” he adds. “We’re also now able to add new features to a product or service in a matter of days. This enables us to keep up with the demands of our customers and remain competitive.”

Customer satisfaction has seen a notable boost, with the new app receiving a 4.9-star rating on the App Store and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play based on thousands of reviews.

Looking ahead

PVcomBank sees its collaboration with Temenos as a long-term investment.

“Our relationship with Temenos has been exponentially valuable for us,” Mr. Hien says. “The company consistently met our high expectations, and its ongoing commitment to updating its platforms has been crucial to us. It means we can deliver an exceptional experience to our customers and stay ahead in a very competitive industry.”

With further upgrades planned, PVcomBank remains committed to expanding its digital capabilities. “We have big plans ahead, and we are very confident that Temenos will support us, no matter what we decide to do,” Mr. Hien says. “The newest version of Temenos core banking has a lot of fantastic new capabilities, and we cannot wait to upgrade so that we can further strengthen our position as a leader in Vietnam’s financial services market.”