The strategy supports Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ goals to convert 50 percent of total financial transactions to digital and include at least 70 percent of adultn Filipinos into the formal financial system by the end of 2023.
RCBC, one of the leading universal banks in the Philippines, is pushing forward contextual banking for Filipinos by expanding its banking services on the cloud.
“We are one of the very few local banks to have two mobile apps–one for the mass affluent and one for the mass market,” said Lito Villanueva, RCBC’s executive vice-president and chief innovation and inclusion officer. “This is part of our strategy of contextual banking to ensure that we can cater to the whole spectrum of society.”
Contextual banking is a banking experience, where the service is personalized and seamlessly integrated to the lives of its users.
In a recent press briefing, Villanueva said that this strategy supports BangkoSentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) goals to convert 50 percent of total financial transactions to digital and include at least 70 percent of adult Filipinos into the formal financial system by the end of 2023.
Even before COVID-19
While RCBC began its digital transformation journey even before the pandemic, it was in the middle of 2020 when it became the first local universal bank with the most extensive reach– registering customers from across all 81 provinces in the Philippines through its mobile app DiskarTech.
DiskarTech is the country’s first and only “Taglish” (Tagalog-English) inclusion super app.
It recorded over a million downloads only a month after launch, making it the fastest growing local finance mobile services app. Villanueva attributes the app’s successful reception to RCBC’s strong focus on user experience.
“Our digital group focused mainly on delivery of customer-centric banking products and services, of course with an awesome user experience. This has been our mantra from our chairperson down to our tellers and support teams,” he said. “This includes the creation of innovative, inclusive, and inter-operable digital solutions.”
One of the biggest brand promises of DiskarTech is its standard 3.25 percent annual interest to all depositors. This is much higher than the average annual interest of savings accounts in the Philippines, which is less than one percent and is made possible by lower platform costs on the cloud.
Beyond introducing a taglish app, RCBC introduced an easy onboarding process that runs on cloud infrastructure. This made it possible for Filipinos, even those in far flung areas, to create a basic savings account with only one valid ID. This is part of the company’s branchless banking initiative that seeks to provide every Filipino with responsive and responsible digital financial services.
Partnership with AWS
Villanueva acknowledges digital transformation is not easy. That’s why in RCBC’s journey towards contextual banking, Villanueva highlighted the importance of having a strategic anchor or partner.
“AWS [Amazon Web Services] has played a very critical role in our journey towards digital transformation. It is a work in progress–it is a journey. And our ability to deliver digital services to our clientele has further improved in terms of speed and scale,” he said.
AWS is a leading cloud platform, offering more than 200 fully featured services from data centers around the world. It enables businesses to use cloud infrastructure to digitally transform their organizations. 100 percent of the transactions on DiskarTech is cloud-based, with 7 out of 8 transactions all coming from the provinces.
“All of the things we are doing right now is made possible due to the cost-effectiveness of running on AWS,” said Villanueva.
Running on the cloud also allows for quick deployment of new features. “One of the features we are so proud about is that after less than a year of pushing for a taglish super inclusion app, we will also have a Visayan or Cebuano version of DiskarTech,” he said.
The need for speed and scale is because the entire idea behind DiskarTech is a wholistic banking experience for the mass market. According to Villanueva, financial inclusion is not just about payments, but rather a wholistic approach that should cover what he calls PISIL—Payments, Investments, Savings, Insurance, and Loans.
“With AWS, RCBC was able to service the huge number of customers that flocked DiskarTech in such a short amount of time.”
