In a year-ender version of its long-running virtual media roundtable series E-TalkTales, UnionBank gave a rundown of its accomplishments and milestones for 2021.
UnionBank Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Technology and Operations Officer, and Chief Transformation Officer Henry Aguda talked about some of the Bank’s achievements for the year.
Here are the top 10 milestones of the bank:
- It is the only commercial bank to be granted a license to operate a digital-native bank – Only 6 digital banks were given a license to operate as such. The other five banks are purely digital banks. Only UnionBank has both a regular banking license and a digital bank license through its subsidiary, UnionDigital. This is meant to reach as many Filipinos as possible as they expand financial inclusion.
- It held a successful groundbreaking of its San Pedro (Laguna) Innovation Campus, the country’s first-ever learning institution focused on digital innovation. Data science and artificial intelligence will be part of this institution’s focus which will be ready by 2022.
- The bank was able to register 21 patents of its innovative offers with 18 more on the way.
- Network and branch transformation – Unionbank boasts 100% uptime of its data center. It has also transformed 150 of its 198 branches nationwide into fully digital branches to become even more agile.
- Instapay 2.0 has been integrated into its digital banking platform. Merchants can post their own QR code that can be scanned by buyers, with payments going directly into the merchants’ bank accounts. With the full rollout of QR PH P2M (person-to-merchant) payments, there will be an accelerated shift to a cash-lite economy.
- It successfully launched the SME Banking platform designed for MSMEs with over 22,000 SME current enrolments. The platform has financed over 2,000 loans amounting to about US$150 million.
- Wealth management – The bank won several awards and issued several white papers
- Tech up advocacy – This is the bank’s tech advocacy which supports government not just by automating their platforms but by providing educational support and training for their executives through a partnership with the Asian Institute of Digital Transformation out of Singapore.
- More UBX platform sign-ups which includes i2i, SeekCap, bux (all-in-one delivery) and Sentro. UBX is one of the fastest growing FinTechs in Asia.
- UnionBank saw a significant increase in its customer base to almost 10 million to date, from just nearly 7 million as of end-2020.
The Co-Founder and CEO of UnionBank’s digital-native banking arm UnionDigital, Arvie de Vera, talked about the role that the newly formed digital bank will play in UnionBank’s digital transformation journey going forward.
He gave a sneak preview of areas where UnionDigital may go, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), several new solutions aimed at helping workers in the thriving gig economy through EON, and participating in the growing interest and opportunities relating to the metaverse, just to name a few.
UnionBank Chief Marketing Officer Albert Cuadrante capped off the event with a promise that the Bank will continue to do even better in 2022 in terms of delivering great customer experience across channels and platforms. He also reiterated that “UnionBank’s goal is not just to help people survive, but to actually enable them to thrive in this new environment through the latest financial technologies; staying true to our commitment to “Tech-up Pilipinas!”
With so many achievements in just one year and with the Innovation Campus shaping up and UnionDigital coming up, 2022 and the years to come look exciting for UnionBank.