Techcombank closed its first five-year transformation cycle at the end of 2025 having reworked large parts of its technology stack, delivery model and operating practices. Techcombank group CIO Tuan Nguyen joined the bank in 2020 at a time when fragmented systems, infrastructure limits and delivery bottlenecks constrained both speed and scale. Nguyen framed the 2021 to 2025 period as a foundational reset rather than a series of incremental upgrades. The objective was to transform the technology team into an engineering organisation to partner with the business, not just to modernise tech stack with isolated applications or infrastructure. The work was positioned as building platforms capable of supporting growth, people with an engineering mindset, and lean, standard best practices and processes that enable the business and continuous change over a much longer horizon. From the outset, the transformation was business-led. Technology choices were expected to enable customer journeys, grow merchant ecosystems and partners’ connectivity, rather than optimise technology metrics alone. This framing shaped sequencing, investment priorities and delivery expectations across the organisation. Nguyen emphasised that the effort required sustained alignment across the executive team and realistic pacing. Large-scale modernisation, he said, only works when business leaders accept that some outcomes arrive later because foundations must be rebuilt first. By the end of the cycle, he described Techcombank as operating on a materially different technology footing, with most customer-facing platforms and data capabilities running on architectures designed for scale rather than patched legacy constraints. Cloud-first as a strategic choice, not a cost exercise Nguyen explained that Techcombank adopted a cloud-first strategy early in the transformation, selecting Amazon Web Services as its primary cloud platform. The choice, he said, was driven by ecosystem breadth and the ability to integrate with partners and deploy capabilities quickly, rather than headline cost considerations. Within roughly two years, more than 60% of the bank’s workloads had moved to the cloud. Nguyen was careful to note that this was not a wholesale “lift-and-shift”. Each application was assessed to determine whether it should be migrated, re-engineered or retired altogether. At the time of the discussion, two major systems remained outside the cloud in production: the core banking platform and the card management system. Nguyen described both as undergoing evaluation or modernisation, noting that their eventual transition would materially change the composition of the technology estate without committing to a numeric end-state. Cloud adoption imposed discipline. Teams had to justify why an application existed, what value it delivered and whether it belonged in the future architecture. In several cases, retiring systems produced clearer benefits than migrating them. Operationally, the migration was structured as a repeatable production model. Separate teams handled foundational zones, infrastructure, applications, data and integration, allowing parallel execution while limiting risk to live operations. Sequencing transformation while maintaining delivery to the business Balancing foundational change with ongoing business demand was one of the most complex aspects of the programme. Nguyen explained that sequencing decisions were made jointly with business leaders, with explicit trade-offs between speed and architectural soundness. Rather than attempting to modernise everything at once, the bank identified early wins while deferring capabilities that depended on deeper architectural change. This approach required constant communication about what could be delivered quickly and what needed longer lead times. Return on value became a central filter. Technology initiatives were assessed not only for feasibility but for their ability to support measurable business outcomes. Where benefits were unclear, work was paused or reprioritised. Structured frameworks were used to sequence more than a hundred applications across multiple waves of migration and transformation. Once priorities were set, delivery followed industrialised processes rather than bespoke project execution. Nguyen credited this discipline with preventing transformation fatigue. Predictable delivery, even with longer timelines, helped maintain trust between technology teams and business units throughout the cycle. Customer platforms and merchant ecosystems as visible outcomes On the customer side, Nguyen highlighted the rebuild of Techcombank’s mobile banking platform on cloud-based architecture. This provided the foundation for more frequent releases and greater resilience compared with the bank’s earlier digital stack. Customer relationship management was re-implemented using Salesforce, enabling better coordination across sales and service teams. This was complemented by Adobe Analytics and Adobe Digital Marketing, which supported personalisation and campaign effectiveness through integrated data. Beyond retail customers, Nguyen placed strong emphasis on merchant platforms. Payment hubs, merchant tools and portals allowed businesses not only to accept payments but also to manage aspects of their operations through Techcombank’s infrastructure. He described merchant growth as a direct outcome of platform capability rather than isolated product launches. The ability to onboard merchants, integrate services and scale volumes quickly depended on the earlier architectural work. These outcomes, he argued, illustrated why foundational transformation mattered. Customer experience improvements emerged from integrated architecture and data flows rather than from standalone system upgrades. Data, AI and disciplined activation Nguyen positioned data and artificial intelligence (AI) as extensions of the cloud architecture rather than separate transformation tracks. Scalable infrastructure enabled the bank to activate data across customer journeys, risk processes and operational workflows. He explained that data platforms underpinned personalisation, merchant analytics and internal decision-making, while AI supported automation and pattern recognition within defined use cases. Progress, he noted, had been incremental. Data maturity depended on governance, integration and talent as much as technology. Benefits accumulated over time as platforms stabilised and usage expanded. Use cases were prioritised based on business relevance rather than novelty. This ensured that data initiatives remained grounded in operational needs instead of becoming experimental projects detached from outcomes. As core systems completed their modernisation, Nguyen expected data and AI to become more deeply embedded across platforms, reducing friction in both customer-facing and internal processes. Operating model, talent and sustaining execution Cloud adoption required changes to the operating model. Nguyen described the move towards agile delivery and DevSecOps—development, security and operations integrated—as both a technical and cultural shift. Technology teams had to acquire new skills, while business leaders needed to adapt to different delivery rhythms. Patience and sustained investment in people were critical during this transition. Rather than relying solely on vendors, the bank focused on building internal engineering capability. This allowed teams to retain architectural knowledge and adapt platforms as business needs evolved. Governance provided guardrails for experimentation. Teams were encouraged to innovate within defined parameters, ensuring that experimentation translated into production outcomes rather than isolated pilots. For Nguyen, culture was reflected in daily execution: shared objectives, realistic planning and mutual understanding of constraints. These factors enabled the bank to sustain momentum over five years. Positioning the next phase of Techcombank’s technology strategy As Techcombank entered its next strategic cycle, Nguyen framed priorities around completing core modernisation, deepening data activation and further industrialising delivery practices. With most workloads already operating in the cloud, focus shifted from migration to optimisation. The emphasis was on resilience, scalability and the ability to support continuous change without restarting transformation programmes. Nguyen described the bank as having moved from rebuilding foundations to operating at scale, where platforms, partners and people were aligned to support growth and adaptation. He did not present the journey as finished. Instead, the first five-year cycle established the conditions for sustained execution, with future investment aimed at strengthening intelligence and delivery consistency. Ultimately, he argued, success would be measured by the bank’s ability to align technology with business strategy over time, delivering reliably while responding to evolving customer and market demands.
