Xebia and Singaporean financial services company DigibankASIA have announced a strategic partnership to launch UNObank. It will be a full-service digital bank that will have its pilot launch in the Philippines with a target to expand across the region. The joint venture will also have Xebia act as UNObank’s digital and innovation partner. After its pilot run, the startup will look at expanding in other countries within the Southeast Asian region.
“We have found a hi-tech engineering partner in Xebia whose approach aligns well with UNObank’s objective of [a] highly personalized, AI-first, fully composable, cloud-native, full-stack digital bank,” said Manish Bhai, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of UNO, as he expressed his confidence in the partnership, in a statement shared with TechNode Global.
Anand Sahay, Chief Executive Officer of Xebia Global Services, also weighed in: “Xebia is proud to partner with [the] best minds in the world who are reimagining banking and disrupting the market. In the digital era, companies that seek to be the best, acknowledge that even with great products and services, a customer-first approach is what makes them win the game.”
Xebia is well known as the global leader in digital transformation with its use of innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning, internet-of-things, cloud, DevOps, big data, and analytics. Within the global banking industry, Xebia has worked with companies such as ING, ABN-AMRO, Barclays, and Societe General. The company has also worked with companies such as Air France, Emirates, Tesla, Uber, and L’oreal. The company will be bringing in its expertise as it works together with UNO’s digital and innovation technology team to work on the bank’s digital platform, Cognito.
UNO leverages itself by providing banking services with an AI-first approach on its Cognito platform. It provides convenient and innovative solutions to ease its customers’ overall banking experience by utilizing “advanced machine vision and learning models for customer onboarding, transaction authorizations, alternate-data-based credit scoring, and product and interface personalization at an individual level to advance security, risk, and privacy management patterns.”
Puneet Gupta, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at UNO, explains how AI sets the company apart: “UNO’s AI-first capabilities mean that it is highly adaptable and completely customer-centric–a great example of what a truly composable banking stack should be. Each user will experience the bank as if it were uniquely designed around their needs. That’s the power of an AI-first, all cloud, fully-digital user journey based orchestrated platform.”
Partnering with the Singaporean company is one of Xebia’s biggest moves in Asia since it launched in the region in 2020. Moving forward, Xebia plans to open up offices in Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines within the next couple of months.
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