Success Stories

Prospering in an ultra-competitive market by launching first-of-a-kind digital banking services

Taipei, Taiwan

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At a Glance

• 1.5 million new digital accounts, including 78% net-new clients, since launch of new mobile app

• 4.9 out of five rating for unique mobile app that provides access to seven financial services

• 100% increase in market share, reaching top-four position in Taiwan for digital banking accounts

• 3x faster time to market for new services with latest upgrade of Temenos core banking

In a crowded marketplace, you need to think outside the box and offer something unique to succeed. That’s the challenge for Bank SinoPac operating in Taiwan, one of the most oversaturated banking markets in the Asia Pacific region. Part of Taiwanese finance group SinoPac Holdings, the bank serves individual and corporate clients and also operates in China, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam, and the United States.

Irene Huang, Chief Digital Officer, Bank SinoPac, explains: “We are competing against 38 commercial banks for a slice of a limited market. But there are opportunities, too. For example, there is high demand for digital and mobile banking services among younger people, especially those we call High Earners, Not Rich Yet or HENRYs, who form an important target demographic.”

One key component in Bank SinoPac’s strategy is a focus on digital innovation, as Irene Huang adds: “On the one hand, it’s about embedding new technologies, such as open APIs and artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s also about the right mindset, and always thinking of the customer experience when designing products. While many Taiwanese banks are conservative in their thinking, we adopt a more innovative approach.”

Taking the first steps on the transformation journey

This strategy dates back as far as 2009, when Bank SinoPac began to transform its core banking environment. To replace inflexible legacy systems, the bank selected Temenos core banking. They migrated previously data related to three million customers onto the platform. The move led to major efficiency gains: close of business (COB) processes ran 70 percent faster, and infrastructure costs were cut in half.

Entering the era of open banking

Since then, Bank SinoPac has worked with Temenos to upgrade the core platform in 2012 and 2020. The latest upgrade provided access to advanced API integration functionality, which enabled the bank to take advantage of the open finance initiative launched in Taiwan in 2020. The bank uses the open APIs to interface with the systems of 12 partner organizations and SinoPac Holdings subsidiaries.

For the internal teams at Bank SinoPac, Temenos solution has proved easy to use, as Irene Huang confirms: “Temenos core banking is a very intuitive platform. For example, the preconfigured components simplify work such as product development, eliminating the need for us to write lines of code.”

Developing a first-of-a-kind mobile banking app

Using Temenos core banking has enabled Bank SinoPac to push ahead with its innovation strategy. For example, the latest upgrade helped the bank achieve a threefold improvement in time to market for new services. The solution also helped the bank kick off the development of new digital banking services, such as the groundbreaking DAWHO app, which stands for Digital Account with Happiness and Opulence.

Irene Huang explains: “In Taiwan, banks typically offer mobile apps to manage only one service, such as savings or payments, causing a fragmented experience when users want to complete several different transactions. With DAWHO, we aimed for an ‘ecosystem’ approach that would offer customers a frictionless digital journey and enable them to access multiple services through one portal.”

In a first for the Taiwanese market, DAWHO integrates seven services: deposits, wealth management, foreign exchange, personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, and securities—all provided by Bank SinoPac or a SinoPac Holdings subsidiary. Temenos core banking processes all customer transactions made through the DAWHO app and enables the bank to create and deploy new product features.

Attracting an extra million customers

The DAWHO app has been a huge success, giving Bank SinoPac a valuable differentiator in the Taiwanese market. User feedback has been extremely positive, with satisfaction scores of 4.9 out of five on the Apple App Store. And in just over three years since the launch of DAWHO, the bank has seen 1.5 million customers open digital accounts—including 78 percent, or 1.17 million, net-new clients.

The app has helped Bank SinoPac to reach younger market segments, as Irene Huang notes: “Before the launch of DAWHO, the average age of our retail banking customers was 47. Today, it is 33—indicating that we have increased our appeal to generations Y and Z, including the HENRYs.”

This surge in customer numbers translates into a much bigger slice of the Taiwanese market. “We are now ranked number four in Taiwan in terms of digital banking account holders,” explains Irene Huang. “And overall, we have grown our market share from around five to ten percent since the rollout of DAWHO.”

Refining the digital experience

In the latest collaboration, Bank SinoPac is using Temenos digital banking to reshape and unify the user experience across all its digital delivery channels—including its e-banking web portal and mobile app, DACARD payments app, and integrated DAWHO app. The project is progressing well, and the bank expects to complete the enhancements and launch the new digital ecosystem early in 2024.

Irene Huang adds: “Our design team finds Temenos digital banking very useful for developing new layouts for our digital portals. They also highlight the value of Temenos Visualizer, which gives them the tools to create a consistent look and feel for all of our apps. Once live, we will be able to roll out updates to all four digital portals at once through Temenos digital banking, rather than having to run them separately.”