UnionBank ratchets up digital banking push with Red Hat, AWS

Union Bank of the Philippines is using Red Hat OpenShift Service on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to accelerate the migration of mission-critical workloads from on-premises environments to AWS. 

Using the agility of the cloud to scale its workloads on demand, UnionBank expects to be able to launch innovative financial services, like digital wallets, artificial intelligence-powered financial assistants, and mobile payment apps faster compared to using on-premises environments.

UnionBank is pushing digital banking efforts forward with Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, which offers the foundation for building cloud-native applications on a Kubernetes framework. 

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With Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS, organisations like UnionBank can use the wide range of AWS compute, database, analytics, machine learning (ML), networking, mobile, and other services to build security-focused and scalable applications faster. 

UnionBank uses Amazon API Gateway and Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS) to build new mobile banking products with microservices that support any application architecture, regardless of scale, load, or complexity. 

For example, the bank integrated electronic “Know Your Customer” (eKYC) capabilities into its mobile app, allowing customers to submit documents digitally to open a bank account instead of via post or by visiting a physical branch.

Also, Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS allows the bank to seamlessly shift workloads to the cloud as business needs evolve. The service has helped simplify operations at UnionBank so that teams can act faster as well as develop apps with more agility and accuracy, reducing the average application deployment time by 95%. 

Further, Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS frees up the team’s bandwidth away from managing day-to-day infrastructure and gives them greater flexibility to focus on long term innovation. 

This can include developing microfinance and microsavings applications, which provide small-scale financial services to individuals who may not have access to traditional banking services.

Through a six week immersive consulting engagement with Red Hat’s Open Innovation Lab, UnionBank  identified application development process efficiencies and increased collaboration between its product, developer, and operations teams. This has helped streamline internal processes, saving development time, and promoted stronger DevOps practices such as open ways of working and agile workflow. 

As a result, teams can efficiently and collectively deliver more personalized products meeting customer needs for financial management, including payments, lending, investing, and insurance.

Dennis D. Omila, chief technology and operations officer at UnionBank, said Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS allows their teams greater autonomy and flexibility to deliver latest features and updates to meet market needs.