Techcombank ushers in new era of AI-powered banking

Techcombank’s first ever Keynote event ‘Pioneering Innovation: Reaching for New Heights’ was held on June 28 in Hanoi.

The event showcased Techcombank’s most innovative new solutions for individual, business and corporate customers and highlighted how the bank is harnessing the power of data and AI to create meaningful experiences for customers and deliver unprecedented growth for Techcombank.

Techcombank CEO Jens Lottner giving the opening remarks

Kicking off the event, CEO Jens Lottner highlighted the investment made by Techcombank over the first three years of its 2021-2025 transformation plan in the areas of Digital, Data and Talent.

This investment has allowed the bank to create unprecedented value for customers and release a number of first-in-the-market innovations. As of today, Techcombank has broadly applied data analysis and AI across the bank and most major systems have been transitioned to the cloud.

This puts Techcombank around three years ahead of its competitors in Vietnam and is enabling the bank to harness the power of data and AI to drive unique business outcomes and unparalleled customer centricity.

“This year we have accelerated our drive towards leveraging our digital platforms and new data and AI capabilities to create more hyper-personalised experiences for our customers, and grow our business faster and more profitably than any other bank in Vietnam. We are now redefining banking in Vietnam with our product innovations and personalised experiences,” said Lottner.

Techcombank’s application of technology, its customer centricity, and strong operational and financial performance have been recognised by numerous prestigious international awards over the past year.

Along with this, Techcombank has been named “Best Bank in Vietnam 2024” by the international financial publications Global Finance and Finance Asia and has been voted the #1 Bank in Vietnam by customers in a survey by Forbes Magazine.

Redefining banking with hyper-personalised experiences

During the Techcombank Keynote, Pranav Seth, Techcombank’s chief digital officer, highlighted the bank’s latest innovations that were helping to create hyper-personalised experiences for customers through the bank’s award-winning digital banking platforms.

Through Techcombank Mobile app, the bank is helping customers improve their financial awareness by providing personalised financial management advice and insights, enabling customers to enjoy their money and save for the future.

Techcombank has already delivered over 52 million personalised pieces of financial advice to more than four million customers since the experience was launched. The bank’s use of AI and machine learning has been a game changer, delivering more than 100 million personalised insights views in 2023.

Techcombank’s new loyalty ecosystem offers rewards and experiences tailored to individual customer’s preferences and lifestyles.

It is already one of the largest and most diverse loyalty programmes in the Vietnamese banking industry, encompassing over 19,000 points of sale with over 300 brands, where customers can earn reward points.

Currently, the bank has over 8.5 million customers in its loyalty ecosystem, with around 4 million customers actively earning points each month.

Innovative solutions

Phung Quang Hung, head of Corporate and Institutional Banking Group introduced C-Cash, a first-of-its-kind corporate treasury management solution, in partnership with Kyriba, a global provider of cloud treasury and financial solutions.

Initially piloted in 2023, C-Cash is being rolled-out to all corporate customers in 2024 and is designed to uplift their treasury management to a world-class level. It enables corporates to take a more holistic and integrated 360 degree view of their financial positions across multiple bank accounts and even multiple banks.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, chief retail banking group officer, highlighted the bank’s all-in-one banking solution for merchant customers called Techcombank Merchant. This holistic suite of offerings is designed to empower merchants to run and grow their businesses by providing multiple benefits.

The benefits include all-in-one smart payment acceptance; auto-earning to earn more from surplus cash; easy access to credit for both business and personal needs; attractive loyalty ecosystem; and beyond banking services, it helps manage and grow the customers’ business

Over 600,000 merchants now use Techcombank’s merchant solutions, and this has contributed to a 20 per cent increase in the bank’s current account, savings account balance.

Pioneering differentiated wealth solutions

Nguyen Xuan Minh, chairman of Techcom Securities (TCBS), explained how TCBS has become the leading securities company in Vietnam by pioneering “Wealthtech strategy.” Under this strategy, TCBS has developed the TCInvest super app and a suite of innovative digital-led wealth management solutions.

Today, TCBS serves around one million customers and takes the lead in terms of market share among bank-owned equity brokerages on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, and is in the top 3 overall.

In Q1 2024, 31,187 customers opened a new TCBS account through the TCInvest app, and the app averaged over 14.8 million visits each month. Through the TCInvest app, customers can easily and securely trade securities, bonds, funds, derivatives and other asset classes entirely online and at the touch of a button.

Harnessing the power of data and AI

Supported by a workforce that includes over 1,800 data scientists, analysts, engineers and IT-related staff, Techcombank is offering meaningful and engaging experiences to customers as it transforms into a bank powered by data and AI.

Santhosh Mahendiran, Techcombank’s chief data and analytics officer, reminded that the bank’s use of advanced data analytics, generative AI and large language models underpin its ability to provide new personalised customer experiences to millions of individual customers.

The bank’s integrated data in the “data lake” from over 50 of the bank’s systems and is linked with Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) data analytics capabilities to create a bank-wide 'data brain'. This ‘data brain’ is linked to its cloud-based customer relationship management platform that provides a centralised 360 degree view of all customer information to empower relationship managers and ensure seamless online and offline customer journeys.

“AWS is proud to be part of Techcombank's digital transformation journey, enabling the bank to access services, AI capabilities, infrastructure, and robust security they need to leverage generative AI at scale and drive innovation, whilst remaining cost-effective,” said Eric Yeo, Vietnam’s country manager, AWS.

In bringing the first-ever Techcombank Keynote to a close, Lottner said, “Our unique combination of advanced data capabilities, state-of-the-art digital infrastructure, and top-tier talent enables a growth strategy that is very difficult to replicate. With the strong support of our partners and shareholders, we have built one of the best banking platforms in Asia. We are now ready to go to the next level, to compete and win over customers to realise our vision, change banking, change lives.”

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