When Vietnam Prosperity Bank (VPBank) decided in 2022 to modernise its core system, the priority was clear: strengthen the bank’s ability to deliver products faster and more securely in a rapidly expanding digital economy. “No matter how sophisticated or how important technology may be, if you don’t align with the business, then we have a big issue and a big problem,” said Augustine Wong, chief information officer of VPBank. Strategic alignment between business and technology The bank’s existing core platform had reached its scalability limits. According to Wong, “Business always wanted speed-to-market, and to achieve speed-to-market we have to build capabilities, resilience and security. That leads naturally to the question: how do we modernise our core?” Working with Gartner to evaluate the market, VPBank found that a completely new core would require rebuilding extensive customisation accumulated over two decades. “We even talked about building on blockchain,” Wong recalled. “But we did not have the business- analyst skills to construct smart contracts in Vietnam. Temenos offered the optimal way forward given our structure and the skills available.” Vietnam’s pioneering Temenos Core-on-OpenShift implementation The result was a deployment of the latest Temenos Core Banking System on Red Hat OpenShift (Kubernetes), orchestrated by Systems Limited as system integrator, with Temenos and Red Hat engineers embedded onsite throughout. The upgrade moved the core to a cloud-native architecture, enabling containerised deployment and micro-services integration. “We wanted to be cloud-native but cloud-agnostic,” Wong explained. “Core banking is the heart of the bank and holds the most customer data, so we built for flexibility and adaptability.” Regulatory sensitivity around data residency influenced this design. “In this part of the world, regulators love data residency,” he said during the panel discussion. “When you are in a cloud, you’d better be well protected and prepared to bring data back in if asked. That’s why we took an independent path with Red Hat OpenShift – so that, if needed, we can pull it out.” Delivering a seamless migration The migration was one of the largest of its kind in Asia: 77 terabytes of data covering 18 million accounts were moved from production to a disaster-recovery (DR) environment and back within a single weekend. “We set the target to finish within a short weekend,” said Do Cam Van, director of the core banking applications centre. “We had a long checklist with many parties – infrastructure, application, integration teams – and we used disaster recovery (DR) so customers felt no impact. From Friday midnight to Sunday afternoon we completed the migration in about 20 hours, and the actual downtime was only three hours.” Wong added, “Customers were still transacting while we migrated. Only for three hours did we pause to switch from DR to production without corruption. All business units validated and then we opened the floodgates.” Parallel execution of large-table conversions using Oracle utilities shortened the conversion time by about 60%. “Plan, test, measure continuously,” Wong emphasised. “At the point of no return, everyone must sign off – top to bottom. If issues arise, fix on the fly – no rollback.” Technology and scale through partnership “We searched the world for people who had done Red Hat OpenShift on-prem and chose Systems Limited,” said Wong. “They flew in experts from Pakistan to Vietnam and worked with us onsite day and night. Temenos was fully engaged too.” The collaboration, he noted, was deliberately structured to eliminate vendor silos. “Temenos, Systems Limited and Red Hat were all onsite. We always make it one team, one voice, one strategy and goal – no blame game.” Containerisation has given VPBank the agility to deploy, scale and patch services independently while maintaining compliance with Vietnam’s strict data-residency rules. “With the new containerised environment we can bring more logs, react quickly, even spot behaviours before they happen,” Wong said. Operational gains and customer impact Since go-live, performance metrics have improved significantly. “Close-of-business processing improved by 30%,” said Do. “Payment transactions rose 40%, and on peak days we handled double the usual volume without incident. The new platform lets us launch products faster and improve customer experience.” Wong framed success not only in operational terms but in customer outcomes. “We measure from customer experience and our ability to push new products and services. That’s how we see return – in improved agility, not just numbers.” People, culture and leadership Wong attributed execution success to a culture that balances discipline with experimentation. “Sometimes people don’t understand when you tell them not to do something. You must let them experience it. They are young and gung-ho. You cannot kill that spirit. Give them a week or two to try, then guide them. Sometimes they surprise you.” He added a reminder of accountability: “Always remind ourselves – we must deliver something meaningful for the organisation. Otherwise, we shouldn’t be here.” Do, who has served the bank for 23 years and participated in several Temenos upgrades, said the project strengthened collaboration and professionalism. “With Augustine we learned how to deal better with internal customers and managers. Commitment is very important – we set targets, timelines and achieved them together.” Building for the AI-ready future Beyond core transformation, VPBank is preparing for the next wave of intelligent automation. “The next shift is AI,” Wong said. “We built a conversational AI platform to help our staff respond accurately to regulations and customer queries. There are tonnes of documents and circulars – AI lets them find answers instantly. AI will drive productivity gains, but the core must keep data integrity because it’s the system of record.” At the Temenos CXO roundtable, he elaborated: “We are really doubling down on agentic AI. Why? Because it helps us speed up our processes. As customers ourselves, we don’t want to wait. Not doing is not an option.” The bank has established what Wong calls an “AI factory” – a controlled repository of reusable components. “If I can build something useful, put it in the repository so others don’t waste time reinventing it. The factory will have rails and be governed by the right people, so nobody invents their own in an unsafe way.” Keeping the core simple Even as technology evolves, Wong remains pragmatic: “The core banking system is the heart and to some extent the brain of the entire organisation. Keep the core simple – a system of record for debits and credits. Anything not related to the core, keep it outside.” His advice to peers: “Identify what is truly required of your core, be rigorous in testing, relentless in execution. Confidence comes from preparation and practice – table-top exercises, collective intellect and learning from different angles. Nobody has all the answers, but together you move forward.” A milestone for Vietnam’s banking modernisation VPBank’s upgrade to Temenos’ latest Core Bankingon Red Hat OpenShift marks a significant step in Vietnam’s banking digitalisation. It demonstrates how a financial institution can achieve speed-to-market, resilience and scalability while maintaining regulatory control and operational discipline. More importantly, it shows how leadership, teamwork and accountability – not technology alone – define successful transformation. As Wong concluded during the panel discussion: “What got you here doesn’t mean it will get you there. You have to embrace change.”
