PVcomBank delivers outstanding customer experiences

Founded in 2013, PVcomBank was the result of a merger between Petro Vietnam Finance Joint Stock Corporation (PVFC) and Western Commercial Joint Stock Bank (WesternBank). Over the years, PVcomBank has expanded to become the fifth-largest digital bank in Vietnam. Thanks to its commitment to deliver ‘Banking for Everyone’, it now serves over three million customers across various segments in the retail, small- and medium-sized enterprise, commercial, and corporate sectors.

Innovation is a priority for the bank, which is why it rewards curiosity and experimentation. It is not afraid of failure – its culture can be described as “when things go wrong, lessons can be learned”. That’s why it has established its Venture Studio, a safe space where startups are free to explore new concepts and take risks. In addition, the bank’s data sandbox fosters innovation by providing a secure and safe place to experiment with data and uncover new opportunities that can benefit customers and employees alike.

PVcomBank has transformed mobile banking for one million customers in Vietnam with Temenos Digital on AWS

Prioritising mobile

Mobile banking has long been the primary channel for PVcomBank’s retail business. However, in 2022, it realised its mobile service was falling short of customer expectations.

“Our mobile business was growing – we’d acquired a million new customers in 2022”, explained 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."

PVcomBank’s customers reported slow performance and poor engagement in the mobile app. At the same time, it was taking the bank more than four weeks to add new features to a product or service. “The limitation of our traditional architecture and legacy technologies had suppressed innovation and slowed our business growth,” Hien said.

Hien and his team realised they needed an advanced omnichannel digital banking platform to facilitate a seamless customer experience across any channel and through every step of the customer lifecycle. So, they set about looking for a suitable solution.

Seeking a solution

“We spent around six months evaluating potential vendors,” Hien said. “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 most suitable solution, however, was on PVcomBank’s doorstep. The bank had already been running on Temenos core for retail and corporate banking for seven years and was also leveraging Temenos Trade Finance. So, when it discovered Temenos digital banking, it seemed like the perfect solution.

Trinh Vinh Hien, chief technology officer and chief data officer at PVcomBank

“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," Hien noted.

He points to the impact it has had on Trade Finance. “With the smart banking capabilities of Temenos digital platform, we can now digitise Temenos Trade Finance, meaning we can further increase efficiencies, reduce manual tasks, and bring this service into online channels for customers."

Hien was particularly confident that it would receive adequate support from the software vendor. “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”, he explains.

Recognising that its existing legacy architecture would hamper a fast implementation, PVcomBank leveraged the Temenos API framework.

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

This approach to integration enabled PVcomBank to achieve faster time-to-value and helped it operate more efficiently, streamline processes with increased automation, and deliver a faster, frictionless customer experience.

A successful launch

PVcomBank successfully launched its new mobile banking solution in April 2024. “We have already migrated one million retail customers who now benefit from a consistent journey across any device and on any channel," Hien said. “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."

Users of PVcomBank’s new mobile app can take advantage of fast and simple onboarding, AI-powered assistance, personalised offers based on their spending behaviour, and more. Slow performance is now a thing of the past, with response times averaging less than 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 20 per cent increase in the number of customers opening deposit accounts online”, Hien added.

PVcomBank now serves over three million customers across various segments in retail, SME, commercial, and corporate

The benefits of Temenos are not just felt by customers. “By deploying Temenos digital banking in a cloud-agnostic architecture, our operational efficiency has increased by 40 per cent,” Hien said. “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.”

As a result, overall customer satisfaction has improved significantly. In fact, the new Temenos-powered app has received a 4.9-star rating on the App Store and a 4.6-star rating on Google Play, based on feedback from thousands of reviews.

A Temenos-powered future

Hien confirmed that PVcomBank’s decision to build its mobile app on Temenos digital was the right one.

“Our relationship with Temenos has been exponentially valuable for us," Hien said. “The company consistently meets 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.”

As a result, PVcomBank is certain that it will develop its relationship with Temenos further in the months and years to come. “We have big plans ahead, and we are very confident that Temenos will support us, no matter what we decide to do," Hien said. “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."

PVcomBank and Vietpay Technology enter comprehensive cooperation On April 25, Hanoi-based lender PVcomBank and Vietpay Technology Co., Ltd. – a member of multi-national group Nexxo Ventures Ltd. from the UK – signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement in associating and expanding the network of payment and card issuance.

PVcomBank launches its multichannel payment service PVcomBank has launched its multichannel payment service in collaboration with Visa and Vietpay Technology, a member of UK-based multinational group Nexxo Ventures Ltd.

PVcomBank builds success on AWS cloud PVcomBank, one of the fastest growing banks in Vietnam, is building a platform on AWS to deploy advanced technologies to promote innovation, enhance customer satisfaction, and increase operational efficiency. Trinh Vinh Hien, deputy IT director at PVcomBank, and Eric Yeo, country manager at AWS Vietnam, spoke with VIR’s Bich Thuy about the partnership and moving forward.