Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MSB), one of Vietnam’s oldest privately owned banks, has achieved significant milestones in its digital transformation journey under the leadership of Nguyễn Quốc Khánh, its Chief Information Officer. With a modernised technology stack built on the Temenos Core Banking system, Temenos Payments Hub, Temenos Data Hub, and an engagement banking platform powered by Backbase, MSB has created an agile foundation for future innovation. Within six months of going live, these platforms helped MSB achieve over 10% growth in its customer and account base and a 180% increase in transaction volumes. “We live in a digital era where most of our customers expect digital-first interactions,” said Khánh. “The transformation was essential to meet customer expectations across all touchpoints.” Business-led transformation with a youthful digital heart Khánh described how MSB’s transformation strategy is no longer seen as a purely technological endeavour but as a mission-led initiative championed across business units. “In the past, many viewed transformation as a technology project. Now it is driven by business objectives and mission leadership,” he explained. The shift to Temenos was driven by the limitations of MSB’s legacy systems. The decision to replace its core was symbolic. “The core is like the heart of the bank. Our customers are young—20 to 25 years old. They deserve a young heart, not a 45-year-old one,” he said. The new architecture allows the bank to meet evolving customer needs more efficiently and at scale. Unifying engagement and core with microservices architecture MSB also invested in a modern digital engagement platform to work alongside its core systems. “We transformed all the major platforms—core banking, payments, data and customer engagement,” said Khánh. The integration across systems was achieved using a microservices architecture that allowed modular connectivity. “The new platforms offer seamless integration, far better control and flexibility,” he said. The engagement banking platform, being piloted and scheduled for rollout by early next year, is intended to bring the bank’s suite of services into a unified experience. “We are on track, and our pilot results are promising,” he said. Operational agility through DevOps and cloud-native technologies A significant part of MSB’s technology overhaul includes adopting open-source DevOps and building a cloud-native architecture using Red Hat OpenShift. “The speed of change is critical for success. We want to make necessary changes as quickly as possible,” said Khánh. MSB has fully automated its development-to-deployment lifecycle, allowing changes to be rolled out in hours rather than weeks. “We break down work into smaller chunks, enabling faster, more targeted updates,” he said. This agility is key to keeping pace with dynamic customer needs. The move to open standards and commodity hardware has given MSB additional flexibility. “We deliberately avoid proprietary systems. Open standards give us better control and help us adapt more easily to technology evolution,” he explained. From automation to intelligence: the next phase of transformation MSB’s digital transformation is structured in three phases: branding, automation, and intelligence. With foundational platforms already in place, the bank is now moving into the next phase—artificial intelligence (AI) adoption. “The AI race is beginning. We have launched a bank-wide AI programme to assess how we can position MSB in this new era,” said Khánh. The goal is to integrate AI across all functions and make technology a shared competency across the organisation. “Technology is no longer just the CIO’s responsibility. We are democratising it throughout the bank,” he added. Competing in a fast-growing market Vietnam’s banking sector remains relatively underpenetrated, offering MSB room to grow. For MSB, the main value of digital transformation is competitive positioning. “It is about staying ahead. Automation and optimisation are important, but our focus is to be better than the competition,” said Khánh. The bank measures its digital success through product uptake and customer perception. “We benchmark our services through customer experience metrics and market validation,” he said. As the market matures, MSB aims to keep its digital edge by sustaining a nimble technology backbone and embracing future-ready capabilities like AI. MSB’s transformation is a case study in aligning business ambition with technological agility. By committing to platform modernisation, process automation, and AI integration, it is building not only a digital bank—but a resilient, responsive one poised for growth in Vietnam’s increasingly competitive financial services market.
