MANILA, July 26 — Surigao del Sur-based Cantilan Bank Inc. (CBI) will be rolling out the country’s first cloud-based core banking technology in Mindanao.
CBI, with financial support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and cloud software technology provided by Oradian, launched Wednesday a pilot project using the cloud system in core banking operations.
The project also aims to be a model for future cloud-based banking system in other parts of the country.
CBI executive vice president, Tanya Hotchkiss, said the rural bank’s digital transformation targets to improve financial inclusion in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao.
Hotchkiss added that moving to digital transformation opens opportunities in financial services, such as making savings, getting loans, sending remittances, buying insurance, and making payments easier.
Citing data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the CBI executive noted that 86 percent of Filipinos do not have bank accounts, and 40 percent of the unbanked towns in the country are located in Mindanao.
She said this is an opportunity for financial institutions to enhance access to financial services and promote financial inclusion in the southern part of the Philippines.
“By moving to the cloud, we can more effectively mitigate various IT, strategic, and operational risks. Also, through Oradian’s SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model, we can look forward to a significant reduction in our future IT capital expenses,” Hotchkiss said.
“This will give Cantilan more capacity to focus on our core business and financial inclusion mission.”
Moreover, the ADB will provide USD150,000 or about PHP7.6 million as grant for the pilot project.
ADB financial sector specialist, Kelly Hattel, mentioned that the ADB grant for this project is part of its support to strengthen financial inclusion in the Philippines.
Hattel said the initial stages of implementing the pilot project include the full migration of CBI’s data and information to cloud infrastructure and capturing the baseline.
“Through our financial support, we are going to be in these initial stages — one and two — of the migration and capturing the baseline, and we’ll be evaluating this as we go forward,” she said.
Oradian co-founder and COO, Julian Oehrlein, meanwhile assured that the firm’s expertise in providing cloud banking software in marginalized areas makes the system safe and successful.
Oehrlein noted that Oradian has been implementing this kind of technology in northern Nigeria, wherein the telecommunications infrastructure is also a challenge, and the system has been working seamlessly since its launch. (Kris M. Crismundo/PNA)